Gene Therapy Stocks Take Beating On Bad News For Celladon Corp.

Biotech stocks took a beating Monday after Celladon Corp.

said its heart failure drug Mydicar is a bust. Celladon plunged nearly 80 percent while the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index was off three percent in midday trading Monday. Smaller companies focused on gene therapy appeared hardest hit, including Avalanche Biotechnologies Inc.

, which declined more than 9 percent to $34.12 and Juno Therapeutics Inc.

, off 6 percent to $53.25. Sangamo Biosciences Inc.

dropped 8 percent to $13.53 and Spark Therapeutics Inc.

lost more than 7 percent to $56.90. Forbes reported recently that the field of gene therapy has heated up lately, with 11 different companies raising at least $618 million from venture capitalists and public markets since the beginning of 2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/03/26/once-seen-as-too-scary-editing-peoples-genes-with-viruses-makes-a-618-million-comeback/ Celladon said Sunday that its gene therapy drug Mydicar gene therapy failed to achieve endpoints in a Phase 2b trial, and that the company is "evaluating our other programs in order to determine the best path forward to maximize shareholder value." http://ir.celladon.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=908592