Kodiak Sciences shares soar after eye drug succeeds in late-stage study

Shares of Kodiak Sciences surged 68.6% to their highest in more than ​four years on Thursday after the drug developer’s experimental drug met ‌the main goal in a late-stage study in patients with diabetes-related eye damage.

Kodiak, valued at $1.39 billion as of Wednesday’s close, was testing the drug, Zenkuda, to treat diabetic ​retinopathy – an eye complication of diabetes characterized by damaged retinal blood ​vessels that can lead to leakage, bleeding, and potential vision loss.

In ⁠the trial, 62.5% of patients who received Zenkuda achieved at least a ​two-step improvement on a standard retinopathy severity scale at 48 weeks, compared with ​3.3% of those on a sham treatment, the company said.

Patients also showed an 85% reduction in the risk of developing sight-threatening complications such as progression to proliferative diabetic retinopathy – ​a type of vision-threatening complication, according to the company.

Since the drug is ​built on Kodiak’s antibody-biopolymer conjugate (ABC) platform, the strong trial results could lift confidence in the ‌company’s ⁠broader drug-development technology, J.P. Morgan analyst Anupam Rama said.

Kodiak said Zenkuda was well-tolerated, with the study reporting no cases of vision-threatening conditions such as inflammation of blood vessels or the eye.

Zenkuda is designed as a long-acting drug ​to block a protein ​linked to harmful ⁠blood-vessel growth in the retina.

The drug showed consistent efficacy among patients regardless of whether they were taking GLP-1 medications, ​the company added.

Kodiak said the results support an application ​for approval ⁠with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and that it plans to accelerate the submission.

UBS analyst Michael Yee said the positive safety data in diabetic retinopathy ⁠also ​de-risks Kodiak’s study in wet age-related macular degeneration, ​which will test both tarcocimab and KSI-501 and is expected to read out in the third ​quarter.