Investors not nutty about Aimmune on digesting allergy data

An initial jump has been followed by a deeper drop in the share value of US biotech Aimmune Therapeutics (Nasdaq: AIMT) after the presentation of some pivotal trial results.

News reports on Tuesday initially claimed that Aimmune might have finally cracked the long quest to find a treatment for patients with a peanut allergy after the company announced that the 554-patient Phase III PALISADE trial had met its primary endpoint.

More than two thirds of patients aged from four to 17 years tolerated at least a 600mg dose of peanut protein in the exit food challenge after being treated with Aimmune’s AR101 for a year, compared to 4% of those on placebo. Half of AR101 patients tolerated a 1000mg dose, compared to 2.4% of the placebo arm.