Neumora Plunges After Depression Drug Fails in Final-Stage Study

(Bloomberg) — Neumora Therapeutics Inc.’s shares plummeted after the company’s experimental drug failed to show a benefit in a final-stage study for treatment of major depressive disorder.

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Patients who received Neumora’s navacaprant didn’t show a statistically significant improvement in a measurement of depression symptoms, the company said Thursday. The shares fell as much as 82% in trading before US markets opened.

Some analysts had hailed navacaprant as a promising new way to treat major depressive disorder, which affects some 21 million people annually in the US. Guggenheim analyst Yatin Suneja had said Neumora shares could double or triple if studies were successful.

Neumora is running two more final-stage trials of the drug, and is developing a number of other drugs for brain disorders.

The company’s cash balance of over $340 million as of the end of the third quarter “provides runway into mid-2026,” Henry Gosebruch, Neumora’s chief executive officer, said in the statement. Its market capitalization was about $1.7 billion as of the last close on Tuesday.

Neumora will give updates on navacaprant and the rest of its pipeline at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, he said. The conference begins Jan. 13 in San Francisco.

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