Today’s Research Reports on Stocks to Watch: ACADIA Pharmaceuticals and Menlo Therapeutics

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / April 10, 2018 / Negative news about Acadia’s Nuplazid drug being a suspect in many adverse event related deaths had Wall Street on edge yesterday, sending shares of the biotech company into the red. Shares of Menlo Therapeutics suffered even worse with a loss of nearly 80% at the close after the company reported disappointing results in a Phase 2 trial of Serlopitant to treat pruritus.

RDI Initiates Coverage on:

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.
https://www.rdinvesting.com/report/?ticker=ACAD

Menlo Therapeutics Inc.
https://www.rdinvesting.com/report/?ticker=MNLO

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares closed down 23.36% on Monday with nearly 24 million shares traded. Trading volume was staggering yesterday compared to an average volume of just around 2 million shares. Shares tanked after an article on the company’s Nuplazid drug raised concerns among investors. The drug, which was given FDA approval, and has been sold to customers since the summer of 2016, has been linked to many deaths. According to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, there had been 244 deaths reported to the Food & Drug Administration as of November in adverse event reports. That number today is at 700 and out of those deaths, as many as 500 of them have Nuplazid listed as a suspect. The President of the National Center for Health Research spoke to CNN, Diana Zuckerman, and she said, “This is almost unheard of, to have this many deaths reported. You just don’t see this with most new drugs — you don’t see all these reports — so you have to take it seriously.” According to Acadia however, “the data doesn’t show that its drug is responsible for the deaths.”

Access RDI’s ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. Research Report at:
https://www.rdinvesting.com/report/?ticker=ACAD

Menlo Therapeutics Inc. shares collapsed on Monday, closing down 76.80% on about 3 million shares traded. It was a grim day for the stock after the company announced results from a Phase 2 trial of Serlopitant for pruritus that is associated with atopic dermatitis. Serlopitant is a NK-1 receptor antagonist that is administered once a day to treat pruritus. Serlopitant did not meet the primary or secondary endpoints in the phase 2 MTI-103 atopic dermatitis trial. CEO Steve Basta stated, “While we are disappointed that the results in this Phase 2 trial of pruritus associated with atopic dermatitis did not reach statistical significance and did not show the same magnitude of treatment effect as in our prior pruritus studies, we do see in the results a pattern that shows numerical improvement in each serlopitant treatment group above the placebo group at every timepoint. This is our third pruritus study of serlopitant. Reduction of pruritus has been demonstrated in two prior Phase 2 studies, one trial in patients with chronic pruritus and one trial in patients with prurigo nodularis.” He further said, “We are initiating Phase 3 studies in prurigo nodularis this quarter, and we are looking forward to the Phase 2 results in refractory chronic cough in the fourth quarter of this year, and the Phase 2 results in pruritus associated with psoriasis by late 2018 or early 2019.”

Access RDI’s Menlo Therapeutics Inc. Research Report at:
https://www.rdinvesting.com/report/?ticker=MNLO

Our Actionable Research on ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ACAD) and Menlo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: MNLO) can be downloaded free of charge at Research Driven Investing.

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