Synairgen tanks, as Phase III SPRINTER trial in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 misses goals

Shares of UK respiratory disease focussed biotech Synairgen (LSE: SNG) plunged more than 85% to 25.04 pence this morning, after it announced that the international Phase III SPRINTER trial of SNG001 in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 did not meet its primary or key secondary efficacy endpoints. SNG001, Synairgen’s inhaled formulation of interferon beta-1a, demonstrated a favorable safety profile and was well tolerated in this population.

Interferon beta is already widely used in an injectable form for multiple sclerosis. SNG001 has previously been licensed to AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) under a $230 million deal, signed in 2014, for treating respiratory tract viral infections in patients with severe asthma.

Synairgen chief executive Richard Marsden commented: "While we are disappointed by the overall outcome, SNG001 has been administered to hospitalized patients on top of standard of care which changed substantially between our Phase II and Phase III trials. This improvement in patient care may have compromized the potential of SNG001 to show a clinical benefit in respect of the endpoints for this study, which were not met. Despite this we have observed an encouraging trend in prevention of progression to severe disease and death, which we strongly believe merits further investigation in a platform trial. We are now analysing the full dataset to better understand all the findings."