Alto Neuroscience Stock Plummets Pre-Market After MDD Drug Trial Misses Primary Endpoint, Grabs Retail Attention

Alto Neuroscience ($ANRO) shares fell nearly 64% in pre-market trading on Wednesday after the company announced that its treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD), ALTO-100, failed to meet its primary endpoint in a Phase 2 study. 

The stock reportedly hit all-time lows during after-hours trading on Tuesday.

According to Alto, the treatment did not show significant improvement in depressive symptoms compared to a placebo in patients with a memory-based cognitive biomarker. 

However, the company noted that ALTO-100 demonstrated a favorable safety and tolerability profile consistent with earlier studies, with common adverse events such as headache, nausea, and abnormal dreams occurring at rates similar to the placebo group.

The company also indicated that its current cash position is sufficient to fund operations into 2027 and support multiple upcoming clinical readouts, including two additional studies in MDD (ALTO-203 and ALTO-300) expected in the first half of 2025.

CEO Amit Etkin expressed disappointment over the study results, emphasizing the significant unmet need in the patient population and the company’s commitment to precision medicine in psychiatry. 

He stated that the company would quickly evaluate the full dataset to better understand the findings and leverage insights across their platform.

In response to the disappointing news, several analysts downgraded Alto Neuroscience. 

Wedbush downgraded the stock from ‘Outperform’ to ‘Neutral’, lowering its price target from $29 to $4. 

Rodman & Renshaw also cut its rating from ‘Buy’ to ‘Neutral’, setting a price target of $5.50. 

Baird reduced its target from $32 to $10 while maintaining an ‘Outperform’ rating, noting that the brokerage is removing ALTO-100 from their model despite management indicating potential signals for patient stratification.

On Stocktwits, ANRO emerged as one of the top trending tickers early Wednesday, with message volume spiking by 1700% in the previous session and a 16% increase in new followers. 

Year-to-date, the stock is down nearly 30%.

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