July 24 Quick Takes: Kodiak sinks on tarcocimab DME miss

The promise of VEGF inhibitor tarcocimab (KSI-301), which pushed Kodiak Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ:KOD) to a valuation north of $8 billion as recently as February 2021, was finally extinguished on Monday as data from three Phase III trials led to a decision to discontinue its development. Kodiak said that while the anti-VEGF mAb and biopolymer conjugate, the company’s lead, met the primary endpoint of non-inferiority to aflibercept on visual acuity gains in the Phase III DAYLIGHT trial in treatment-naive wet age-related macular degeneration, it did not meet the same endpoint in the Phase III GLIMMER and GLEAM studies in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME).

According to Kodiak, an increase in cataracts for patients receiving tarcocimab may have contributed to the failure in the DME studies, as there was no similar imbalance in the DAYLIGHT trial. Kodiak fell $3.35 (46%) to $3.95 on Monday, giving the company a market cap of $207 million — well below the company’s cash position of $379 million at June 30. The company’s stock at peaked at $171.21 in February 2021...