Mirati Therapeutics shares tumble on release of Phase 2 trial data for lung cancer treatment

Shares of the biotech company Mirati Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MRTX) are slipping on the release of Phase 2 clinical data for its combination drug treating lung cancer.

The study was evaluating Mirati’s therapy sitravatinib in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co’s (NYSE:BMY) groundbreaking drug Opdivo as a method for treating non-small cell lung cancer.

Sitravatinib is a small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is currently being evaluated in three clinical development programs for the treatment of genetically-defined lung cancer and other solid tumors.

Out of 56 patients, 16 of those taking part in the Phase 2 study achieved either a partial or complete response rate to the treatment. While 45 of 56 patients saw their tumors shrink, 18 of 56 patients reported a more than 30% reduction in the size of their tumors.

Investors came away unimpressed with the results, however, sending Mirati shares down 18.4% to $32.65 in Monday’s afternoon trading session.

READ: Bristol-Myers Squibb shares fall after FDA delays approval for lung cancer therapy

But in response, Oppenheimer analyst Leah Rush Cann is sticking to an Outperform rating on the company’s stock with a $62 price target.

“We find these results encouraging and supportive of sitravatinib as a combination therapy with a checkpoint inhibitor,” Rush Cann writes in a note to investors.

The analyst is projecting that sitravatinib could launch in 2023 as both a single agent and in combination with other agents and could account for nearly 34% of Mirati’s estimated product sales.

Mirati plans to launch a Phase 3 study in patients with non-small cell lung cancer who have already received initial treatments that compares the combination of sitravatinib plus a checkpoint inhibitor to docetaxel in the first half of next year.

The company is a clinical-stage oncology company based in San Diego, California. 

Contact Ellen Kelleher at [email protected]

Story by ProactiveInvestors