Kronos Bio prioritizes clinical portfolio as it drops entospletinib trial

Shares of USA-based Kronos Bio (Nasdaq: KRON) plunged more than 9% to $2.32 in early trading today, after it announced the prioritization of its clinical portfolio to focus on the development of its next generation SYK inhibitor, lanraplenib, and its CDK9 inhibitor, KB-0742. However, as investors digested the news, the stock recovered and was up 3% at $2.39 by late morning.

The Phase III trial of its SYK inhibitor, entospletinib, for the treatment of newly diagnosed patients with NPM1-mutated acute myeloid leukemia (AML), will be discontinued and company plans to close the trial to further enrollment. Patients already enrolled in the trial may complete their course of treatment.

According to Kronos, the decision to stop the trial was "not due to adverse events or lack of efficacy signals," but rather follows a review that indicated there would be "significant delays" in enrolling a genetically defined subset of patients in a front-line setting, the residual and ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the inability to activate planned clinical trial sites in Russia and Ukraine.