Alnylam stock catapulted Monday, breaking out from a lengthy consolidation, after its experimental heart-disease treatment topped expectations in a highly anticipated study.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals tested vutrisiran over three years in patients with ATTR amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy. In this disease, abnormal protein builds up on the heart and causes damage.
Across all patients — including those receiving Pfizer's Vyndamax — vutrisiran reduced death by any reason for 36%. Patients who received vutrisiran alone had a 35% lower risk of death. That outperformed the 30% reduction from Vyndamax in its final-phase study, RBC Capital Markets analyst Luca Issi said in a report.
Vyndamax sales are around $4.5 billion a year, Issi said. It works differently from vutrisiran, which silences the gene that creates the problematic protein.
"This is best-case scenario for Alnylam and pending more details from the call it may even suggest silencers will be used as first-line agents in ATTR amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy," RBC Capital's Issi said.
On today's stock market, Alnylam stock skyrocketed 34.5% to 222.90. Shares broke out of a six-month consolidation with a buy point at 199.38, according to MarketSurge charts. BridgeBio, which is also working on a treatment for the same condition, saw shares tumble 15.9% to 23.
Alnylam Stock: Secondary Measures Promising
In addition, patients showed improvements in how far they can walk for six minutes — a measure of disease severity, on a questionnaire of symptoms and on a scale of heart-failure symptoms.
Notably, the results look promising in patients treated with Pfizer's drug and never-before-treated patients, William Blair analyst Myles Minter said in a report.
"This is impressive and shows vutrisiran is highly effective in both naive and (Vyndamax)-experienced patients and supports broad use, in our view, which is in line with our best-case scenario," he said.
Minter has an outperform rating on Alnylam stock.
Leerink Partners analyst Mani Foroohar says vutrisiran was safe, with similar discontinuation rates among patients who received vutrisiran and the placebo. Alnylam is now planning to ask the Food and Drug Administration to approve vutrisiran for ATTR amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy.
"We aren't surprised that the stock is up 30%-plus today given the limited (but likely approvable) data presented — favorable vs. BridgeBio's acoramidis on an apples-to-oranges basis given different duration of follow-up," he said in a report.
Foroohar has a market perform rating on Alnylam stock.
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