Dallas, Texas 11/06/2013 (Financialstrend) – ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) said that it would discontinue its mid-stage trial of the experimental small cell lung-cancer drug post the death of one patient. The news sent the company’s shares plummeting by 18.97% on Tuesday. ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) said that an independent monitoring-panel had recommended that the treatment for all patients be discontinued. The factors that were noted were the actual rate of infection as well as infection related deaths in patients who were under treatment. This trial was studying benefits of IMGN901, the drug, in combination with carboplatin or etoposide, the chemotherapy drugs in comparison with only chemotherapy.
The company stated that one infection-related death has occurred and that there was a possibility that it was related to this drug. This was one case amongst the 198 patients who were receiving this therapy. Analysts have noted that this is a definite setback for ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN), as this was a 100%-owned clinical program and a clinically-advanced one as well.
Tuesday’s trading
In Tuesday’s trading, ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) dropped by 18.97%. The opening price of the shares was $14.38, which was the intraday high as well, and dipped to a close of $13.41. Approximately 5.64 million shares were traded on Tuesday while an average volume of 0.699 million shares were traded over a 30 day period. The 52-week low of ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) shares is $10.85 and its 52-week high is $20.25. The company has a market capitalization of $1.15 billion.
About the company
ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) develops antibody-based, targeted therapeutics that are used in cancer treatment. The company designs linkers that allow the antibody-based therapeutics in the treatment of cancer agents to stay stably-attached to antibodies when they are in the blood stream and to be released in their fully-active form post delivery to a cancer-cell. An anticancer-compound made utilizing ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN)’s Targeted Antibody Payload-technology is made of a monoclonal-antibody.