XLRN - Here's Why Shares of Acceleron Pharma Rocketed Higher Today
Shares of Acceleron Pharma (NASDAQ: XLRN) are up 41% at 11:19 a.m. EST following a report after the closing bell yesterday that the company's heart drug sotatercept was successful in a phase 2 clinical trial in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a disease characterized by high blood pressure in the lungs.
After 24 weeks of treatment, sotatercept was able to reduce pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR), the primary endpoint of the study. PVR measures the severity of PAH. The drug also improved secondary endpoints including how far the patients could walk in six minutes (6MWD) as well as two other measures of PAH severity: N-terminal pro b-type natriuretic peptide levels and World Health Organization (WHO) functional class.
Acceleron Pharma didn't put any numbers to the successful endpoints. As drug companies often do, it's saving the data for a medical meeting later this year.