Biotech Plummets Despite ‘Watershed Moment’ For Its Field

Cartesian Therapeutics (RNAC) reported a “watershed moment” for its autoimmune-disease focused CAR-T treatment on Tuesday, but the biotech stock plunged.

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The biotech company tested its drug, Descartes-08, in patients with generalized myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune condition that causes muscle weakness and fatigue. After three months, 71% of patients who received Cartesian’s drug achieved at least a five-point improvement on a 50-point scale of symptoms. In comparison, just 25% of placebo recipients hit the same bar.

“These data mark a watershed moment for the field, representing the first-placebo controlled study of a CAR-T cell therapy in autoimmune disease,” Leerink Partners analyst Thomas Smith said in a report to clients.

But in early trades on today’s stock market, the biotech stock plummeted 22.7% to 18.75.

Biotech Stock: First Chemo-Free CAR-T?

The results were durable for at least six months.

Importantly, the drug proved safe and well tolerated. There were no cases of cytokine release syndrome or immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome. Both are common side effects of CAR-T treatment in cancer patients. If successful, Cartesian Therapeutics’ drug would be the first in its class that doesn’t require patients to receive chemotherapy ahead of treatment.

“Overall, we view the data as positive for Cartesian — establishing proof-of-concept for Descartes-08 with an (effectiveness) and safety profile supportive of a differentiated profile compared to other cell therapies via lack of (chemotherapy), potential for outpatient dosing and signals supporting an ability to retreat patients,” Leerink’s Smith said.

He has an outperform rating on the biotech stock.

Cartesian Therapeutics stock has an improving IBD Digital Relative Strength Rating of 82. This means shares rank in the top 8% of all stocks in terms of 12-month performance. A week ago, the biotech stock had a poor RS Rating of 25.

Follow Allison Gatlin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @IBD_AGatlin.

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