Alkermes spinoff Mural plunges on plans to halt ovarian cancer trial

Mural Oncology (NASDAQ:MURA), which was spun out of Irish biotech Alkermes (NASDAQ:ALKS) in 2023, lost ~47% in the premarket on Tuesday after the company announced plans to halt a Phase 3 trial for nemvaleukin alfa, one of its lead assets.

The 456-subject trial named ARTISTRY-7 was designed to evaluate Mural’s (NASDAQ:MURA) antitumor agent with Merck’s (MRK) anti-PD-1 therapy, Keytruda, against the investigator’s choice chemotherapy in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC).

Following an interim data analysis, the company said that ARTISTRY-7 didn’t indicate a statistically significant improvement in overall survival, the study's primary endpoint, versus chemotherapy.

“The company believes the study is highly unlikely to achieve success at the final analysis,” Mural (NASDAQ:MURA) added, noting that patients who received nemvaleukin alfa + Keytruda lived a median of 10.1 months (overall survival) compared to 9.8 months for those who received chemotherapy.

However, the interim readout indicated a safety profile in line with findings from prior studies for the combination therapy, the company added.