BioMarin shares hurt after mid-stage trial failure

Investors quickly shaved off about 15 percent of the value of BioMarin shares this morning after the developer announced that a drug program for hypertension had failed a mid-stage trial. BioMarin says that it plans to study the data on 6R-BH4, which failed to show a statistically significant advantage over a placebo, adding that it has no immediate plans to alter its planned development of the therapy. The candidate has the same active ingredient as Phenoptin, but the company says it works through a different mechanism and doesn't expect that the new data will have an impact on Phenoptin.

- here's the AP report on the data