Why the Bionomics share price crashed 37.5% lower today

One of the worst performers on the Australian share market on Wednesday has been the Bionomics Ltd (ASX: BNO) share price.

In morning trade the biopharmaceutical company’s shares are down a massive 37.5% to a multi-year low of 3.5 cents.

This latest decline means that the Bionomics share price has now lost close to 94% of its value over the last 12 months.

Why is the Bionomics share price down 37% today?

Investors have been heading to the exits this morning after another disappointing study result for its BNC210 product candidate.

This morning the company announced the top line results of an exploratory trial of BNC210 for the treatment of agitation in elderly patients in a hospital setting.

According to the release, the results of the trial indicated that BNC210 treatment did not differentiate from placebo on the primary and secondary efficacy end points.

A comparison of the mean peak daily Pittsburgh Agitation Scale scores (observations of aberrant vocalisation, motor agitation, aggressiveness and resisting care) showed a gradual improvement for both BNC210 and placebo over the five-day treatment period, but without evidence of a treatment effect.

Professor Paul Rolan, Bionomics consultant chief medical officer, said: “Whilst the results of the trial do not support further development of BNC210 for treatment of agitation, given BNC210’s consistent safety profile and the demonstration by pharmacometric exposure-response modelling of its potential to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, we remain confident in pursuing PTSD, provided that we can achieve the blood exposure levels predicted by the modelling analysis.“

The company now intends to push ahead with a single ascending dose study in healthy volunteers to demonstrate that blood levels of BNC210 believed to be necessary to meet the primary endpoints for effectiveness in treating PTSD in any further trial are achievable using the new solid dose formulation.

The cost of this study is estimated to be $300,000 and results are anticipated to be available early in the fourth quarter of the calendar year.

After which, Dr Errol De Souza, Executive Chairman of Bionomics, revealed that Bionomics intends to proceed with the further formulation development and preparation for a second Phase 2 trial if “the proposed study with the solid dose formulation confirms that the required blood levels are achievable, and the FDA guidance supports a second Phase 2 trial of BNC210 in PTSD.”

Elsewhere in the industry today, the CSL Limited (ASX: CSL) share price has pushed higher and the Mayne Pharma Group Ltd (ASX: MYX) share price is trading 1% lower at a multi-year low of 47.5 cents.