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Investing.com – Pluristem Stock (NASDAQ:PSTI) plummeted more than 18% Monday after the company’s candidate for treating severe effects related to Covid-19 failed to meet the desired endpoints in a phase-II study.
The treatment is intended to use intramuscular injections to administer cells that Pluristem calls PLX-PAD to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome associated with the viral infection.
The treatment did not statistically improve the number of ventilator-free days for patients over the 28-day studies, the company said.
The analysis is based on 89 patients enrolled in two phase-II studies — one in the U.S. and another combined research in Europe and Israel, the company’s home country.
The company had earlier planned to have 180 patients in the two studies collectively but reduced the number in response to changes in the standards of care for Covid-19. That change led to a reduction in the statistical power of the studies.
Pluristem said with the emergence of a new threat in the form of omicron, it intends to explore opportunities based on the efficacy trends obtained from the recent studies.
