Acorda Therapeutics Sinks 13% On Discontinuation Of Drug For Post-stroke Walking

Acorda Therapeutics Inc. shares dropped as much as 13.2% in pre-market trade Monday after the company said it was discontinuing development of its drug intended for post-stroke walking difficulties after a clinical trial failure. Despite promising results for the drug dalfampridine in a phase 2 trial, the latest results were not sufficiently clinically meaningful, the company said. Leerink analyst Paul Matteis called the trial's failure a "small disappointment...we believe only a few dollars of value were priced into the stock at most," and reiterated a market perform rating. The company said it will now focus on its two late-stage Parkinson's disease therapies, CVT-301 and tozadenant, and treatments that are earlier in development in migraine, Parkinson's disease dementia and multiple sclerosis. The stock "currently remains cheap given the fact that it still only prices in the Civitas program (CVT-301) and nothing else," said RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael J. Yee. Acorda shares have dropped 50.2% year-to-date, compared with a 6.8% rise in the S&P 500 .