(Reuters) - Bellicum Pharmaceuticals Inc said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had placed a clinical hold on U.S. trials of the company's experimental cancer drug after three cases of brain disease linked to head trauma.
Shares of the Houston-based drug developer fell 48 percent to $5.26 in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
The company said the FDA had deemed the cases of brain disease as possibly being related to its cancer drug, BPX-501.
Bellicum said it would work closely with the FDA to address concerns.
The clinical hold does not affect another trial testing the same drug in Europe.
The company last year moved its planned submission of a European marketing application for the drug to 2019 from a previous expectation of mid-2018.
(Reporting by Akankshita; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)
