Thursday, October 6, 2016

Alnylam Crushed On A Surprising Late-Stage Failure

What biotech investors giveth, they can quickly taketh away.

Before Wednesday evening, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) was, I think, the most highly-valued biotech with no product approvals at around $6 billion in market cap. A huge chunk of that is going to evaporate today (October 6, 2016), as the company stunned investors Wednesday evening with the announcement that it was ending development of its Phase III candidate revusiran.

Alnylam management, never shy to issue a press release or host a conference call, hemmed and hawed about the precise reason(s) why the data monitoring committee recommended stopping the study, and that's likely going to lead to widespread concern about the company's pipeline and technology - concern that isn't helped by a recent run of trial setbacks. Once the dust settles, Alnylam is likely to be meaningfully undervalued relative to the potential of patisiran, fitusiran, and earlier-stage assets, but this stock will be deep in the doghouse and very much back to a "show me" status with investors.

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Alnylam Crushed On A Surprising Late-Stage Failure

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