Shkreli Warned You: Mast Therapeutics Plummets 80% After Sickle Cell Drug Phase 3 Trial Fail

Shares of Mast Therapeutics Inc MSTX fell 83 percent in Tuesday’s after-hours session after the company announced its phase-3 EPIC trial of vepoloxamer for the treatment of sickle cell disease patients experiencing vaso-occlusive crisis failed to meet its primary efficacy endpoint.

"We are exceedingly disappointed with these top-line results... These analyses are limited to just top-line data, so in the coming weeks the Company intends to review the full data set from EPIC. In addition, we plan to perform an interim analysis of the ongoing heart failure trial of vepoloxamer," the company said.

"However, based on the data we've seen to date, we expect we will terminate all clinical development of vepoloxamer. Consequently, while we evaluate our options, we intend to significantly and immediately reduce our operating expenses and continue our efforts with AIR001, our lead asset in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, which currently is the subject of a 100-patient phase 2 study expected to complete enrollment by the end of 2017,” the biopharma added.

Shkreli Called It

Martin Shkreli was a recent guest on Benzinga's PreMarket Prep, where he said Mast Therapeutics was "worthless."

"This is a company that's probably, I would say, worthless, that's gonna drop 90 percent or more in the next few weeks," said Shkreli.

"This happens in biotech," he continued. "There's at least 10-20 of these a year where you just have a drug that never should have been developed, by a management team that doesn't know what they're doing. The company doesn't have any cash, and they're just praying to hit the lotto and unfortunately they wont. That's kind of what I think is going to happen to Mast."

The stock traded recently at $0.10, down 81.8 percent in the after-hours session.