Bellerophon Therapeutics (NSDQ:BLPH) said today that its bioabsorbable cardiac matrix failed to meet both the primary and secondary endpoints in a 303-patient clinical trial, sending its share price down nearly -63% today.
BCM is a liquid medical device injected into the coronary artery leading to the damaged area of a heart, and is designed for use after a heart attack. It forms a gel/scaffold in the damaged portion of the heart’s left ventricle and helps support the heart wall, to prevent further damage as well as congestive heart failure, allowing the heart to heal. Once its job is done, the BCM absorbed into and then eliminated from the body.
Bellerophon licenses the technology from BioLineRx (NSDQ:BLRX), which saw its shares drop -16.0% to $1.78 apiece today as investors reacted to the news.
Bellerophon, which spun out from Ikaria with a $60 million initial public offering earlier this year, said top-line results from the Preservation I trial showed no statistically significant differences between patients treated with BCM and patients treated with a placebo and no significant difference in adverse event rates between the groups.
Safety data analyzed to date shows no significant difference in adverse event rates for patients in the BCM and placebo treatment groups.
“We are clearly disappointed with the top-line results from Preservation I and will continue to investigate the full data set over the next few weeks and to reassess further clinical development of BCM,” chairman & CEO Jonathan Peacock said in prepared remarks.
Bellerophon said it plans to present detailed results from Preservation I at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual meeting in London Sept. 1.
BLPH shares were down -62.9% to $2.84 apiece today.
