Mys­tery solved? Nek­tar chief says 'soft­en­ing' in pa­tient re­spons­es to be­m­peg was a CMC is­sue — spurring a rout

Nek­tar CEO Howard Robin says his top team has been puz­zling out the rea­son why the re­sponse rates for their close­ly-watched drug NK­TR-214 (be­m­pe­galdesleukin) “soft­ened up” over time — with dis­as­trous con­se­quences. But the ex­pla­na­tion didn’t sat­is­fy any­one.

In fact, their stock $NK­TR plunged close to 33% af­ter the ex­pla­na­tion, shred­ding more than $1.5 bil­lion in mar­ket cap. And that’s not what Robin was look­ing for.

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