Rigel's pos­i­tive PhI­II for bleed­ing dis­or­der trig­gers a roller coast­er ride for shares

A fail­ure-prone Rigel Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals claimed a much-need­ed win in a Phase III study of its lead drug. And the news spurred a tem­po­rary spike in its share price, with the stock $RIGL soar­ing more than 50% and then quick­ly set­tling back to a much more mod­est gain of about 7% as an­a­lysts took a sec­ond look at the un­ex­cit­ing re­sults.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors say the drug did sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter than a place­bo, with 18% of the pa­tients in the drug arm achiev­ing a sta­ble platelet re­sponse, up against none in the place­bo arm. And that, Rigel says, should set up an ap­proval for use among treat­ment-re­sis­tant pa­tients, pro­vid­ed the next late-stage study – due in a cou­ple of months – con­firms its re­sults.

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