Kodiak Sciences shares soar after eye drug succeeds in late-stage study

By Siddhi Mahatole

March 26 (Reuters) – Shares of Kodiak Sciences surged 68.6% to their highest in more than four years on Thursday after the drug developer’s experimental drug ​met the main goal in a late-stage study in ‌patients with diabetes-related eye damage.

Kodiak, valued at $1.39 billion as of Wednesday’s close, was testing the drug, Zenkuda, to treat diabetic retinopathy – an eye complication of diabetes characterized by damaged retinal blood vessels that can lead to leakage, ‌bleeding, ​and potential vision loss.

In the trial, ⁠62.5% of patients who received ⁠Zenkuda achieved at least a two-step improvement on a standard retinopathy severity scale at 48 weeks, compared with 3.3% of those on a sham treatment, the company said.

Patients also ​showed an 85% reduction in the risk of developing sight-threatening complications such as progression to proliferative diabetic retinopathy – a type ⁠of vision-threatening complication, according to the ⁠company.

Since the drug is built on Kodiak’s antibody-biopolymer ​conjugate (ABC) platform, the strong trial results could lift confidence in the ​company’s broader drug-development technology, J.P. Morgan analyst Anupam Rama ‌said.

Kodiak said Zenkuda was well-tolerated, with the study reporting no cases of vision-threatening conditions such as inflammation of blood vessels or the eye.

Zenkuda is designed as a long-acting drug to block a ⁠protein linked to harmful blood-vessel growth in the retina.

The drug showed consistent efficacy among patients regardless of whether they were taking GLP-1 ⁠medications, the company added.

Kodiak ‌said the results support an application for ⁠approval with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ​and ‌that it plans to accelerate the submission.

UBS analyst ​Michael Yee ⁠said the positive safety data in diabetic retinopathy also de-risks Kodiak’s study in wet age-related macular degeneration, which will test both tarcocimab and KSI-501 and is expected to read out in the third quarter.

(Reporting by Siddhi Mahatole in Bengaluru; Editing by Srirj Kalluvila ​and Leroy Leo)