5 Stocks Reeling From Huge Losses

2. Erasca Inc. (NASDAQ:ERAS)

Erasca Inc. plunged by 48.30 percent on Tuesday to close at $9.90 apiece, as investors sold off positions following the death of a patient enrolled in the first phase of clinical trial testing the efficacy of its pancreatic and lung cancer treatment candidate, ERAS-0015.

In a call with analysts, Erasca Inc. (NASDAQ:ERAS) confirmed the death of a 66-year-old man who developed Grade 3 pneumonitis on 24 mg. He was said to have elected to withdraw supportive care, which later resulted in his death. Management deemed the case a “rare event.”

Despite the case, Erasca Inc. (NASDAQ:ERAS) maintained ERAS-0015 as potentially the best-in-class amid positive preliminary data from the first phase across all other enrolled patients.

According to the company, ERAS-0015 demonstrated favorable response rates, with more than half of enrolled lung cancer patients seeing their tumors shrink, and around 50 percent of pancreatic cancer patients saw shrinkage.

ERAS-0015 also demonstrated a favorable safety profile and recorded only low-grade adverse events.

“We are thrilled with the robust efficacy results demonstrated so far by our pan-RAS inhibitor ERAS-0015 in patients with lung and pancreatic cancer. The magnitude of clinical benefit seen during dose escalation is particularly striking and compares favorably with other pan-RAS, pan-KRAS, or KRAS-mutant selective inhibitors,” said Erasca Inc. (NASDAQ:ERAS) Chairman and CEO Jonathan Lim.

“Notably, preliminary data support ERAS-0015 may be combined with standard-of-care doses of panitumumab, positioning it as a potential backbone therapy for future combination regimens. Together, we believe these findings support the best-in-class potential of ERAS-0015, and we look forward to continued progress in our Phase 1 monotherapy dose expansion cohorts and combination dose escalation cohorts,” he noted.