Why Shares of Viridian Therapeutics Are Falling Tuesday

What happened

Shares of Viridian Therapeutics (NASDAQ:VRDN) were down more 14% as of 11:40 a.m. on Tuesday after the company announced preliminary results from a phase 2 trial for a chronic thyroid eye disease (TED) therapy. The stock is down more than 27% this year.

So what

Viridian is a clinical-stage biotech that focuses on therapies to treat rare diseases and immune disorders. On Monday, it announced what it said were positive phase 2 results for VRDN-001 in a proof-of-concept trial for chronic TED. The therapy is also in a phase 3 trial to treat patients with active TED.

In the results, the company said the therapy had a strong safety profile and helped patients reduce proptosis (bulging eyes). But 5 out of the 12 VRDN-001 treated patients across both dose cohorts had double vision at baseline, and none of the patients treated with VRDN-001 achieved complete resolution of double vision by week 6.

Now what

On top of the results, the company also received a downgrade from Wedbush on Tuesday, with the target price dropping from $48 to $45. It's a little early to bail on the stock since the results are preliminary and the company has six other therapies in its pipeline.

In the first quarter, it reported having $373.9 million in cash, enough to fund operations into the second half of 2025. There's a relatively large market for TED treatments, with more than 95,000 moderate to severe cases in the U.S. and more than 185,000 in Europe, according to Viridian. Tepezza, a TED therapy which was just launched by Horizon Therapeutics in 2020, did $1.97 billion in sales last year.

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Jim Halley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.