Shares in Xoma Corp. erased most of their value Wednesday after
the company said its eye drug failed in a late-stage study.
In premarket trading, shares plunged 81% to 85 cents.
Xoma developed the drug, gevokizumab, to treat patients with
Behç et's disease uveitis, which can lead to permanent vision loss.
According to Xoma, Behç et's disease is one of the most severe
forms of uveitis, or chronic inflammation of blood vessels in the
eye.
Gevokizumab is the only drug in Xoma's pipeline.
The company, together with French partner Servier, enrolled 83
patients in its Eyeguard-B study. The primary endpoint, which the
drug didn't meet, was the time to first acute ocular
exacerbation.
Secondary endpoints included total number of exacerbations, best
corrected visual acuity and vitreous haze, among other things. Xoma
called observations seen in the secondary endpoints "clinically
important" and said it would conduct further analysis on the
data.
Write to Lisa Beilfuss at lisa.beilfuss@wsj.com
Access Investor Kit for XOMA Corp.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US98419J1079
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires