NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 15:30 ET — Regular session.
Shares of Terns Pharmaceuticals, Inc. fell 2.8% to $40.34 in afternoon trading on Tuesday, after swinging between $39.99 and $41.98.
The pullback puts the stock back around $40, the price used in the company’s recent upsized equity offering — a level traders often watch after a big deal resets supply and demand.
That matters now because Terns’ December financing and trial update put new attention on how quickly the biotech can turn early leukemia data into larger studies, while also giving it a much longer cash runway.
Biotech shares were broadly weaker: the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF was down about 1.6%, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF was little changed.
With no immediate company announcement to explain Tuesday’s move, market participants pointed to the sector pullback and positioning after a month dominated by the company’s trial and fundraising news.
In a Dec. 9 regulatory filing, Terns said it sold 16.25 million shares at $40 each in an underwritten public offering and that underwriters fully exercised an option for another 2.44 million shares, lifting estimated net proceeds to about $705.8 million. The company said the proceeds, together with existing cash, should fund operations at least into 2031.
Earlier this month, Terns said updated Phase 1 data from its CARDINAL trial of TERN-701 showed a 64% major molecular response rate by 24 weeks among efficacy-evaluable chronic myeloid leukemia patients, and 75% at doses of 320 mg or higher taken once daily. “Study enrollment has accelerated and surpassed 85 patients,” Chief Executive Amy Burroughs said as the company picked 320 mg and 500 mg as recommended Phase 2 doses. SEC
Major molecular response, or MMR, is a lab measure of leukemia-related BCR::ABL1 levels in the blood, used to track how deeply treatment suppresses disease. Terns’ drug is an allosteric inhibitor, meaning it binds to a different site on the cancer-driving protein than older tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
Terns is competing in a CML market that includes Novartis’ Scemblix (asciminib), which has U.S. approval for Philadelphia chromosome-positive CML in chronic phase.
For investors, the near-term debate is durability: whether response rates hold as patients stay on therapy longer, and whether safety remains consistent as enrollment grows. The $40 area is also a technical tell, sitting near both Tuesday’s low and the recent offering price.
The next scheduled checkpoint is quarterly results; MarketBeat estimates Terns’ next report for March 19, before the open, though the company has not confirmed a date.
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