Stock Alert: Mesoblast Shares Jump 67% In Premarket

(RTTNews) - Shares of Mesoblast Ltd. (MESO) are soaring over 67% in pre-market today, after the company announced 83% survival in ventilator-dependent COVID-19 patients with moderate/severe acute respiratory distress syndrome or ARDS treated during the period March-April 2020 with two intravenous infusions of Mesoblast's allogeneic mesenchymal stem cell product candidate remestemcel-L within the first five days.

All patients were treated under an emergency Investigational New Drug or IND application or expanded access protocol at New York City's Mt Sinai hospital, the company said.

Mesoblast Chief Medical Officer Dr Fred Grossman said: "There is a significant need to improve the dismal survival outcomes in COVID-19 patients who progress to ARDS and require ventilators. We have implemented robust statistical analyses in our Phase 2/3 trial as recommended by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in order to maximize our ability to evaluate whether remestemcel-L provides a survival benefit in moderate/severe COVID-19 ARDS."

The stock has been trading in the range of $3.12 - $10.88 for the past one year, and closed Thursday's trade at $6.45, down 1 cent or 0.15%. MESO is currently trading at $10.80, up $4.35 or 67.44% in the pre-market trading session.