Why Frequency Therapeutics Stock Is Crashing Today

Shares of Frequency Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FREQ) were crashing 74.9% as of 11:07 a.m. EDT on Tuesday. The huge drop came after the company announced disappointing top-line interim results from a phase 2a clinical study evaluating experimental therapy FX-322 in treating sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). SNHL is the most common form of hearing loss and usually results from damage to auditory sensory hair cells in the inner ear.

Clinical-stage biotech stocks fall hard on bad news from clinical studies. And they fall really hard when that news is from a company's only pipeline candidate. That's the case for Frequency Therapeutics.

Frequency reported that participants with SNHL receiving four weekly injections of FX-322 didn't show any improvement in hearing loss compared to participants receiving placebo. However, the company noted that the placebo group had an unexpectedly high improvement in hearing that didn't occur in any previous studies of FX-322. This benefit was also higher than established standards that have been published.

Source Fool.com