The stock price of Biogen (NASDAQ: BIIB) suffered a steep decline after the biotechnology company announced its decision to stop the trials for its Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab.
BIIB stock plummeted more than 29 percent to $226.88 per share on Thursday. It is the stock’s biggest one-day percentage drop since August 2008. Biogen’s market capitalization went down to $44.6 billion from $63 billion yesterday.
Disappointing futility analysis
Biogen is developing aducanumab in partnership with Eisai Co., Ltd. (OTCMKTS: ESALY), a Japanese pharmaceutical company.
ESALY shares also tanked significantly, 35 percent to $52.60 each due to the negative news about the aducanumab drug trials.
Aducanumab was considered a potential blockbuster treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
In a statement, Biogen and Eisai explained that they based their decision to discontinue the Phase 3 trials of aducanumab based on the results of a futility analysis conducted by an independent data monitoring committee. The results indicated that “the trials were unlikely to meet their primary endpoint upon completion.”
