Here's Why Ophthotech Is Trading Down On Regeneron's News

Ophthotech Corp OPHT, a biopharmaceutical company that develops therapeutics for the treatment of eye diseases, saw its shares fall more than 13 percent Friday.

The decline is attributed to an announcement by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc REGN, a larger biopharmaceutical peer whose therapies also treat eye diseases.

Regeneron announced topline results from a Phase 2 study evaluation of aflibercept co-formulated with rinucumab (REGN2176-3) in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration. The company said the combination therapy didn't demonstrate an improvement in best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) compared to intravitreal aflibercept injection monotherapy at 12 weeks, the primary endpoint of the study.

As previously noted, Ophthotech is developing a drug to treat the same condition called Fovista.

Fovista is currently undergoing several Phase 3 clinical trials but investors took Regeneron's announcement to be a bad sign for Ophthotech's outlook and its therapy.

Shares of Regeneron were trading lower by nearly 2 percent at $398.69.

5 Key Differences Between Regeneron And Ophthotech

On Friday, Yigal Nochomovitz, Ph.D. at Citi, offered five key reasons Regeneron's Phase 2 miss limits the readthrough for Fovista.

1. "Regeneron's PDGFR-B only targets one of the PDGF receptors whereas Fovista is an aptamer that targets the PDGF ligand and thus should be expected to provide better blockage of the PDGF pathway."

2. "REGN2176-3 is a co-formulated anti-PDGF/Eylea (single injection) whereas Fovista is an add-on injection to anti-VEGF (separate injections). The co-formulation may introduce formulation risk especially as the mAb concentration has apparently been doubled given the same 50 μL injection volume. This may be particularly relevant since the data for the combo arm were worse than Eylea alone, which is surprising and may suggest a formulation concern impacting Eylea efficacy."

3. "Regeneron's anti-PDGF is an antibody whereas Fovista is an aptamer, which may introduce risk on appropriate dose given different potencies."

4. "The primary endpoint is only 12 weeks for REGN2176-3 vs. 24 weeks for Fovista and after 12 weeks the trial design changes vs. Fovista's Ph2b. Additional time could be required to demonstrate the benefit of adding PDGF to Eylea. The data at 28 and 52 weeks for pts staying on high dose anti-PDGFB could provide additional insight into the benefit of adding PDGFB."

5. "The first two Fovista Ph3s (basis for the NDA) are testing combinations with Lucentis whereas the Regeneron co-formulated product is testing anti-PDGF + Eylea, which could have an impact (less likely given comparability across antiVEGFs)."