Biotechnology firm Imara Inc’s (NASDAQ: IMRA) share price is falling premarket on Wednesday after the company reported underwhelming data from its Phase 2a clinical trial of IMR-687 in adult patients with sickle cell disease (SCD).
The clinical trial included 93 treated patients across four different sub-studies and was designed to evaluate the safety tolerability, pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD) and clinical outcomes of escalating doses of IMR-687 administered once daily for 16 to 24 weeks, either as a monotherapy or in combination with hydroxyurea (HU).
Imara said the data from the Phase 2a trial demonstrated that IMR-687 was well tolerated as a monotherapy and combined with HU at all dose levels. There were reductions in the rate of vaso-occlusive crises/sickle cell-related pain crises, improved hemolysis markers with variable HbF results, and reductions in hsCRP and NTproBNP in monotherapy IMR-687 treated patients suggest the potential for lowering inflammation and cardiac stress in SCD.
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“These incremental Phase 2a results start an important year of data readouts at Imara. In the first quarter of 2021, we plan to report updates from our Phase 2a open-label extension trial, including results on 10-15 patients,” commented Rahul Ballal, President and CEO of Imara.

Despite Ballal’s somewhat positive comments, the results are underwhelming, and Imara investors have so far agreed.
Its stock price has fallen 28.36% premarket to $17 per share following Tuesday’s close at $23.73.