(Reuters) – Bayer fell on the stock market on Monday morning after announcing the day before the abandonment of a large phase III clinical trial involving a new anticoagulant drug, asundexian, due to its lack of effectiveness.
Around 09:15 GMT, on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the stock plunged 19.02%, trailing the Dax (-0.14%) and the Stoxx 600 (-0.05%).
Bayer shares, which weigh on the European health sector (-0.99), are heading towards their worst session since October 2020.
“We view this (the abandonment of the trial) as a major negative because asundexian was the key drug in Bayer’s portfolio,” writes Morgan Stanley.
The treatment from the German group, a competitor to products from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer, was expected to represent an annual turnover of more than 5 billion euros.
JPMorgan also considers that the failure of Asundexian is a “significant setback” which could weigh on the group’s sales, while Jefferies states that it expects pressure on the laboratory’s shares.
(Reporting Anastasiia Kozlova and Eva Papp, Claude Chendjour, editing by Kate Entringer)
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