By Russ Britt
Shares of Cytokinetics Inc. lost more than half their value in early trading Friday after the biotech company said it failed to reach its primary goals for a new drug it was testing to treat Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Cytokinetics /quotes/zigman/18621233/delayed /quotes/nls/cytk CYTK plunged by more than 60% to $5.11 in recent trades after the release of the results. The company said its drug, Tirasemtiv, did not offer a meaningful change from placebos in primary tests during the Phase 2 program.
The company considers Tirasemtiv to be a “novel” skeletal muscle activator even though it did not prove effective in tests to treat the disease, formally known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The disease usually is fatal due to respiratory failure that occurs when skeletal muscles that help with breathing begin to deteriorate.
Cytokinetics still is testing a cardiac muscle program in conjunction with Amgen Inc. /quotes/zigman/19815/delayed /quotes/nls/amgn AMGN
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