In­vestors are in no mood to hear biotechs tout the suc­cess of a “key” sec­ondary end­point when the piv­otal Phase III flunks the pri­ma­ry goal. Just ask Savara. 

The Texas biotech $SVRA went look­ing for a sil­ver lin­ing as com­pa­ny ex­ecs blunt­ly con­ced­ed that Mol­gradex, an in­haled for­mu­la­tion of re­com­bi­nant hu­man gran­u­lo­cyte-macrophage colony-stim­u­lat­ing fac­tor (GM-CSF), failed to spur sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­proved treat­ment out­comes for pa­tients with a rare res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease called au­toim­mune pul­monary alve­o­lar pro­teinosis, or aPAP.

The p-val­ue was an aw­ful 0.17.

Re­searchers blamed a high place­bo ef­fect, teas­ing out the pos­i­tive as­pects of an im­proved nu­mer­i­cal out­come for sec­on­daries on the 6-minute walk test and a need for whole lung lavage — a pro­ce­dure used to clean the lungs of pa­tients. Those sec­on­daries al­so failed the sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis.

Bruce Trap­nell Cincin­nati Chil­dren’s

But that didn’t stop Savara from sug­gest­ing that a suc­cess­ful score on a pa­tient-re­port­ed qual­i­ty of life as­sess­ment/out­comes test could help set the stage for an ap­proval. 

“Tak­en to­geth­er, the trends in re­duc­tion of A-aDO2, as well as the im­prove­ment in the dif­fu­sion ca­pac­i­ty, are very con­sis­tent with re­duc­tion of the sur­fac­tant bur­den that caus­es the clin­i­cal symp­toms of aPAP,” said Bruce Trap­nell, the lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor. “Most im­por­tant­ly, the im­pres­sive im­prove­ment in qual­i­ty of life, as mea­sured by the SGRQ, sug­gest that Mol­gradex not on­ly im­proved ob­jec­tive mea­sures of oxy­gena­tion, but al­so had a clin­i­cal­ly mean­ing­ful ther­a­peu­tic ef­fect. I be­lieve these da­ta demon­strate that Mol­gradex can be­come an im­por­tant phar­ma­co­log­i­cal treat­ment op­tion for pa­tients with aPAP.”

In­vestors weren’t buy­ing it, though. The stock cratered on the num­bers, plung­ing more than 70% af­ter the bell on Wednes­day.

Im­age: Shut­ter­stock

The rapid development of technology — and the resulting avalanche of data — are catalysts for significant change in the biopharmaceutical industry. This translates into urgent pressures for today’s biopharma, including a need to quickly and affordably develop products with proven therapeutic efficacy and value. This urgency is expedited by the growth of value-based contracting, where access to reimbursement and profit depends on these abilities.

On May 24, FLX Bio, a small cancer and inflammation biotech with backing from GV, changed its name to RAPT Therapeutics and filed confidentially for an IPO. On July 5th, they filed to raise up to $86 million. On July 22, they announced the IPO with a $75 million goal.  And on August 1, they abruptly and without explanation called it all off.

Now, without explanation, they’re reviving the bid, filing again for a $75 million IPO, this time with a new bookrunner and a new drug candidate in the clinic. The terms will be the same: 5 million shares at $14-$16 per share. It would give them a diluted market value of $351 million.

Ahead of its third-quarter results next week, Amgen on Tuesday disclosed the planned retirement of David Meline, who has served as the company’s chief financial officer since 2014.

Meline will be replaced by Ernst & Young vet, Peter Griffith, as CFO come January 1, 2020 — but until then Griffith will serve as executive vice president, finance.

“Over the last 5 years at Amgen, Meline instituted many major changes that led to operational efficiencies and margin expansion while successfully returning cash to shareholders. Now that Amgen is on solid footing, it was a good time to step away,” Cowen’s Yaron Werber wrote in a note. “We do not anticipate any major changes to strategy or operations immediately due to this transition as Amgen is on solid footing.”

Never underestimate the power of a good showing at a scientific conference.
In a presentation late last year, the researchers at Pliant Therapeutics launched a series of discussions about the preclinical data they were pulling together around their work on their small-molecule integrin inhibitor aimed at transforming growth factor beta, or TGF-β, a key pathway involved in fibrosis.
And they got some serious attention for the work.
“We got interest from pharma partners and at the end Novartis basically made it,” says Pliant CEO Bernard Coulie.