AbCellera menopause drug cuts hot flashes in mid-stage trial

AbCellera Biologics Inc. shares rose nearly 35% in premarket trading after the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company said its experimental menopause treatment cut hot flashes in a mid-stage trial. The result pushed a little-undercovered area of drug development into focus: a large market for women’s midlife health that still lacks many widely available, evidence-backed options.

The drug, ABCL635, is a non-hormonal antibody therapy designed as a long-acting, once-monthly injection for moderate-to-severe vasomotor symptoms linked to menopause. Those symptoms include hot flashes and night sweats, and they can disrupt sleep, concentration, mood and day-to-day functioning. AbCellera is targeting neurokinin 3 receptor, or NK3R, a mechanism that has drawn growing industry interest in menopause care.

AbCellera planned to release top-line results from the Phase 2 trial on Monday, August 10, 2026, and said management would host a conference call and live webcast at 4:30 a.m. PT, 7:30 a.m. ET. The company had already said in 2026 that the first patients were dosed in the Phase 2 portion of its Phase 1/2 clinical trial, after Health Canada authorized it to begin the Phase 1 study in 2025 and AbCellera said it expected to start that work in the third quarter of 2025.

ClinicalTrials.gov lists the study as NCT07118891 and gives a publication date of June 15, 2026. A separate trial listing describes the program as active, not recruiting, and spanning both Phase 1 and Phase 2. One industry report said the Phase II segment was randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled, with 80 postmenopausal women.

The stock move highlighted how quickly investors can reprice biotechnology companies when a candidate shows signs of working in a broad population rather than a rare disease. For AbCellera, positive data could also open the door to later-stage development, licensing discussions or partnerships as the company tries to turn its discovery platform into recurring product revenue.

The field is already drawing stronger commercial competition. Bayer won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for its own menopause relief drug in 2025, underscoring that treatments for vasomotor symptoms are moving from a neglected niche toward a more active market. Even so, mid-stage data leave major questions unanswered, including how durable the effect is, how the therapy performs in larger studies and whether a once-monthly injection can compete with existing or emerging alternatives.