EyePoint Shares Fall 81% After Trial Results; Company Ends Wet AMD Program, Cuts 53% of Staff

What happened

EyePoint, Inc. (Nasdaq: EYPT), a Watertown, Massachusetts-based eye care drug developer, said on October 19, 2026 that its board approved a plan to conclude its pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials of DURAVYU in wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) early and to reduce its workforce by approximately 53%. The company said the decision followed a review of topline results from LUCIA, the second of its two Phase 3 wet AMD trials.

The stock closed at $0.5782, down 80.66% from the prior close of $2.99, according to the price data. Volume of about 42.6 million shares was roughly 10 times the average of about 4.3 million.

In the same 8-K, EyePoint said it estimates about $9 million in aggregate charges for employee separation benefits, mostly expected in the fourth quarter of 2026 with the remainder through the third quarter of 2027. It expects substantially all of those charges to be cash expenditures. The filing also said the company issued a press release announcing estimated cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments as of September 30, 2026; those figures are preliminary and have not been reviewed by its independent auditors.

What the company says it will focus on

EyePoint said the plan is designed to reduce operating expenses and focus resources on its late-stage DURAVYU program in diabetic macular edema (DME). The filing names two DME trials, COMO and CAPRI, as the company's remaining pivotal Phase 3 priorities.

The substantial majority of the workforce reduction is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026, with the process completed during the first half of 2027, according to the filing.

What this means

An 8-K is the form a US public company files with the SEC to disclose material events between quarterly reports. The item numbers at the top say what kind of event each section covers. Item 2.02 covers earnings-type disclosures; here it is used for preliminary cash and investment balances. Item 2.05 is specifically for costs tied to an exit or disposal of activities — in this case, ending the wet AMD trials and cutting staff. Item 8.01 is for other events the company chooses to disclose, used here for the press release.

Phase 3 trials are the last stage of clinical testing before a company seeks regulatory approval. EyePoint had two running in wet AMD; the filing says LUCIA was the second, and the decision to stop came after reviewing its topline results. The filing does not state what those results were, only that the board acted after reviewing them. It also does not give the specific reason the wet AMD program was deprioritized in favor of DME; that rationale is stated only as a goal to reduce operating expenses and concentrate on the DME program.

Wet AMD and DME are both retinal diseases treated by injecting drugs into the eye. DURAVYU is EyePoint's sustained-release formulation designed to deliver a drug over a longer period than standard injections. The company's future spending will now go to the DME trials rather than the wet AMD ones.

The $9 million charge is an accounting estimate of severance and related costs. Charges like this are recorded when a company commits to a restructuring, and because the company expects them to be paid in cash, they reduce the cash balance as they are paid out. The company cautions that the estimate relies on assumptions and could be revised.

The stock move reflects how the market repriced the company after the trial disclosure, but the filing itself does not quantify the cash balance, the trial data, or how long the remaining funds will last. Those details, if provided, are in the press release attached as an exhibit, which is not included in the text provided here.