Al­ny­lam shares crater af­ter tri­al deaths force in­ves­ti­ga­tors to scrap PhI­II RNAi drug

Late Wednes­day Al­ny­lam shocked its in­vestors with news that it has de­cid­ed to scrap re­vusir­an, its sec­ond most ad­vanced RNAi ther­a­py in the pipeline, due to a spike in the num­ber of deaths among pa­tients tak­ing the drug in a late-stage tri­al. All dos­ing has been stopped and won’t be re­sumed.

Shares in Al­ny­lam plunged 48% by late Thurs­day morn­ing, wip­ing out close to $3 bil­lion in mar­ket cap. Re­newed fears about the fate and fu­ture of RNAi al­so clawed back oth­er stocks, in­clud­ing ri­val Io­n­is $IONS, down 7%. The re­ac­tion dragged the Nas­daq biotech stock in­dex down 2%.

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