Stocks traded a little jumpy today as traders tried to decide what may come of President Donald Trump backing out of a nuclear deal with Iran. To that end, there wasn't any stock that was even close to gaining the 182% that Amedica Corp. (NASDAQ:AMDA) put on the board today.
The maker of medical-grade silicon nitride ceramics got its wings simply by giving a run down of several clinical studies it is conducting or completed.
In a small study in Ft. Wayne, Indiana evaluating silicon nitride spinal implants compared to allograft spacers in cervical fusion, the data is showing silicon nitride to have more effective outcomes. The company said the results were even better than expected, including faster and more effective bone fusion being observed with silicon nitride at every time interval measured all the way out to 24 months.
The company also recently completed a massive retrospective survey of over 2,000 silicon nitride spinal implants implanted in over 1,000 patients over the past eight years for the purpose of getting a better understanding of clinical outcomes using the implants in spine fusion surgeries. The Salt Lake City-based company called the initial data "very encouraging" as it works towards arranging it for publication.
The company's SNAP (Silicon Nitride Against PEEK) trial comparing intervertebral cages from either silicon nitride or polyetheretherketone (PEEK) is completed. Preliminary data suggests that the trial met its primary endpoint of showing that silicon nitride cages aren't inferior to PEEK devices.
Analysis is ongoing with plans to publish the data in a prominent industry journal sometime later this year.
Amedica's interbody fusion study using a goat model comparing silicon nitride to PEEK was accepted for publishing in the "Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, Part B – Applied Biomaterials." This study showed greater benefits to silicon nitride implants over PEEK with respect to improved bone fusion and bone volume. Like the SNAP trial, the study was designed only to show non-inferiority, but the compelling data bodes well for Amedica products going forward.
With these updates, shares of AMDA, which were trending for the last week near an all-time low at $1.05, blasted ahead 181.98% to wrap the day at $3.13 on over 21 million shares in volume. That's the best volume day for the stock in over four years as a public company.
