New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb stock dropped 18 percent after its single-agent lung cancer drug Opdivo did not perform as hoped in a late-stage trial, Bloomberg reported.
The dip is the lowest the pharmaceutical company has seen in 14 years.
The trial would have been the foundation for expanding treatment use of Opdivo. However, the drug did not reach its goal of extending progression-free survival for untreated patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer as hoped.
Stocks were down 16 percent to $63.05 at 12:03 p.m. Friday. Merck — the producer of Opdivo's No. 1 competitor, Keytruda, — stock rose 6.9 percent. Bristol-Myer's other competitors AstraZeneca and Roche Holding stock rose 1.2 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.
Analysts have said Bristol-Myers' immune treatments Opdivo and Yervoy (a metastatic melanoma treatment) will account for half of Bristol-Myers sales by 2020. The treatments grew Bristol-Myers's U.S. revenue 46 percent in the second quarter this year.
Overall, Opdivo saw a sixfold increase in quarterly sales to $840 million this year. The drug brought in $942 million last year, which is predicted to escalate to $7.7 billion by 2018.
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