Alder Pharmaceuticals notched its biggest intraday stock gain ever. Shares of the company jumped as much as 62% Monday after Alder revealed positive top-line data from two clinical trials for its experimental migraine preventative.
The drug, which goes by ALD403, is a proprietary monoclonal antibody product that is able to prevent migraines by targeting a specific gene-related pathway. Alder’s treatment reduced migraine days by at least 75% for 41% of patients who took the highest dose, the company said. The results demonstrated that ALD403 “acted rapidly and prevented migraine over the entire 12 week study period” for those with chronic migraines.
“Evaluation of ALD403 continues to exhibit a potential best-in-class profile, which includes immediate, significant, and durable migraine prevention,” Randall Schatzman, president and CEO of Alder, said in a statement.
Nearly 13 million patients across the U.S. are candidates for migraine prevention drugs, making it an attractive and potentially lucrative market for pharmaceutical companies. A number of other companies, including Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA), Amgen (AMGN), Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY), and Allergan (AGN), are all developing therapies similar to Alder’s which target a specific gene-linked pathway called anti-CGRPs. These drugs inhibit the CGRP protein, which is thought to be linked to migraine pain.
Schatzman said that competitor drugs could enter the market within nine to 12 months of each other, making the clean results from its trial especially important as the race to be first to market heats up. Alder’s drug could win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval by 2019, he said.
Alder’s (ALDR) stock was up nearly 53% as of 2:07 p.m. ET.