Biotechnology firm Imara Inc’s (NASDAQ: IMRA) share price is falling premarket on Wednesday after the company reported underwhelming data from its Phase 2a clinical trial of IMR-687 in adult patients with sickle cell disease (SCD).
The clinical trial included 93 treated patients across four different sub-studies and was designed to evaluate the safety tolerability, pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD) and clinical outcomes of escalating doses of IMR-687 administered once daily for 16 to 24 weeks, either as a monotherapy or in combination with hydroxyurea (HU).
Imara said the data from the Phase 2a trial demonstrated that IMR-687 was well tolerated as a monotherapy and combined with HU at all dose levels. There were reductions in the rate of vaso-occlusive crises/sickle cell-related pain crises, improved hemolysis markers with variable HbF results, and reductions in hsCRP and NTproBNP in monotherapy IMR-687 treated patients suggest the potential for lowering inflammation and cardiac stress in SCD.
“These incremental Phase 2a results start an important year of data readouts at Imara. In the first quarter of 2021, we plan to report updates from our Phase 2a open-label extension trial, including results on 10-15 patients,” commented Rahul Ballal, President and CEO of Imara.
Despite Ballal’s somewhat positive comments, the results are underwhelming, and Imara investors have so far agreed.
Its stock price has fallen 28.36% premarket to $17 per share following Tuesday’s close at $23.73.
