AstraZeneca plc (ADR) (NYSE:AZN) Still Confident About Its Lung Cancer Treatment Mystic

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AstraZeneca plc (ADR) (NYSE:AZN) has revealed that it has plans to continue pursuing its lung cancer treatment Mystic even after experiencing a major setback during key trials.

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The company has quite a reputation when it comes to reviving its failed previously treatments. Its latest lung cancer drug faced some major roadblocks during its trials, thus the hopes for the treatment were shot down. This was because the lung cancer treatment did not show any significant reduction in lung cancer growth. The news was a major setback for the company but it seems that AstraZeneca is still hopeful about the future of Mystic.

“The most important result is still to come,” AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot told reporters late last month.

Investors not confident with the announcement

It looks like investors have adopted a pessimistic stance on Soriot’s announcement. This was highlighted by the performance of the company’s stock which went down by 15 percent on the day that the company announced the report about Mystic. Andrew Baum, an analyst at Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) gave the treatment a 30 percent chance of redeeming itself.

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sam Fazeli stated that analysts should evaluate the pharmaceutical company based on other merits. He also added that they should treat positive results as positive. Analysts have been judging the company’s performance based on their expectations of the drug trials and Fazeli claims that this is not how they should view it.

AstraZeneca has not made any announcements regarding its plans for the treatment but it looks as if the company is still hopeful about the treatment. The failure of Mystic placed Keytruda on top in its niche. The latter is a similar lung cancer treatment from Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK). Lung cancer patients that treated with Mystic are expected to continue with chemotherapy treatments to manage their conditions. Some executives from AstraZeneca stated that immune-therapies might be effective in some patients but they may also take time since they do not attack the tumor directly.

AstraZeneca stock closed the latest trading session on Monday at $30.06 after a tanking by 0.36 percent from the previous close.

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