The Red-Hot Ebola Drug Stock Tekmira Is Down 20%
Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, which has had a volatile three days, was down 18% on Tuesday after gains of 45% and 15% on Friday and Monday, respectively.
Friday's pop in Tekmira followed a Thursday evening announcement that the FDA loosened a hold on the Ebola treatment in the company's development pipeline.
And though Tekmira has been the biggest individual mover on Ebola-related news, it is not the only company working to develop a treatment or vaccine for Ebola, for which there is currently no cure.
According to a statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, publicly-listed Newlink and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals receive government funding for Ebola treatment candidates.
The CDC said BioCryst is getting funding from the Department of Defense's Threat Reduction Agency, in addition to National Institutes of Health support, to develop an antiviral Ebola treatment. BioCryst was down 1% on Tuesday.
Newlink also announced on August 5 that a subsidiary of the company entered a $1 million letter contract with the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency aimed at bringing an Ebola vaccine licenses from the Public Health Agency of Canada closer to human clinical trials.
On Tuesday, Newlink shares were down nearly 6%.
The CDC's announcement also noted that Mapp Biopharmaceutical, a private biopharma company based in San Diego, is developing ZMapp, an experimental treatment for use in individuals infected with Ebola virus.
The CDC said the treatment hasn't been tested in humans for safety or effectiveness though Reuters reported that ZMapp was used to treat a priest in Spain who was evacuated from Liberia after testing positive for Ebola.
As of Tuesday, more than 1,000 people have died due to Ebola, according to the World Health Organization. And in a statement on Tuesday, the WHO said it "convened a consultation to consider and assess the ethical implications for clinical decision-making of the potential use of unregistered interventions."
"In order to understand the safety and efficacy of these interventions, the group advised that, if and when they are used to treat patients, there is a moral obligation to collect and share all data generated, including from treatments provided for 'compassionate use' (access to an unapproved drug outside of a clinical trial)," the WHO said.