Galera shares take a nose­dive in the wake of un­ex­pect­ed PhI­II flop

Galera was sure it had a win­ner when it launched its piv­otal se­vere oral mu­cosi­tis (SOM) tri­al back in 2018 — and so were in­vestors. Fresh off a $150 mil­lion raise, the com­pa­ny plunged head­first in­to Phase III, even mak­ing com­mer­cial plans.

But those plans went splat Tues­day, as an un­ex­pect­ed fail­ure sent shares spi­ral­ing in­to pen­ny stock ter­ri­to­ry.

Galera’s lead can­di­date ava­sopasem (al­so known as GC4419) failed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce the in­ci­dence of SOM in pa­tients with lo­cal­ly ad­vanced head and neck can­cer com­pared to place­bo, the com­pa­ny an­nounced. While those in the treat­ment group saw a slight re­duc­tion, 54% com­pared to 64% in the place­bo group, the end­point failed to achieve sta­tis­ti­cal sig­nif­i­cance (p=0.113).

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