Cara Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: CARA)
Cara Therapeutics,a biopharmaceutical company listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market exchange had news after the market closed on Thursday 2017- a day that saw heavy selling in shares in a wide variety of categories as investors and traders took profits, got stopped out of long positions and/or entered new short positions.
The overall markets looked like a sea of red with the Dow closing down 167 points, the S&P 500 closing down 21 points and the NASDAQ closing down 90 points. The only thing up of major interest were the financial stocks and oil.
Cara (CARA) released news about a drug, named CR845 that had been in a clinical phase II trial for patients who were experiencing pain related to osteoarthritis of the knee and hip. The results were not good.
Shares closed down 28 % in the after-market at $18.34 or down $7.17. The trading was heavy, total volume traded was 1.3 million. The study was a double-blind study, so some patients received a placebo and some patients received the actual drug.
The drug doses were broken down into 1 mg, 2.5 mg and 5 mg tablet strengths. The only patients that received any benefits from the drug were the ones that received it at the 5 milligram dosage level.
However, the benefits fell short of what the company had hoped for as far as pain reduction. Cara is trying to fill a need to replace some very addictive and dangerous pain medications that are being prescribed rampantly by many medical professionals for pain. The company is also trying to develop an IV formula of the same drug which would treat different ailments.
Company and Medical Professionals Statements
Dr. Ajay D. Wasan, M.D., M.Sc., Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychiatry, Vice Chair for Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) had this to say,
“Developing effective analgesics that lack the high abuse potential and serious side effects of currently available drug classes remains the most pressing need in chronic pain,” The magnitude of the reduction in mean joint pain scores observed in all patients in this trial together with an encouraging safety profile underscores the significant potential of CR845 as a new therapeutic approach for the treatment of chronic inflammatory pain.”
Joseph Stauffer, D.O., M.B.A., Chief Medical Officer of Cara Therapeutics, offered up this to the media,
“We believe that the present trial of oral CR845 has highlighted the potential of a peripherally acting kappa agonist to provide clinical benefit in a chronic pain population and we’re pleased that statistical significance was achieved for the 5.0 mg dose in patients with OA of the hip,” said Joseph Stauffer, D.O., M.B.A., Chief Medical Officer of Cara Therapeutics. “The drug was observed to be well tolerated over the treatment period and this overall data set will inform both our dose selection and patient population in designing our next trial of oral CR845 in OA patients.”
The Price Action
The above chart is the 5 minutes price action of Cara during the regular trading session on the left and the after hour session on the right in the shaded area. Note the dramatic sell-off in the shaded area just after 4 p.m. when the news was announced.
Company Profile
CARA Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage company, which engages in the research, development, and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. Its portfolio includes opioid-based products, anesthetic-based drugs, and analgesics that targets to alleviate itch and pain. The company was founded by Derek T. Chalmers, Michael E. Lewis, and Frédérique Menzaghi on July 2, 2004 and is headquartered in Stamford, CT.-Marketwatch.com
