One month after licensing EU rights to Lundbeck for $100M upfront (a deal I crapped on by the way), Myriad has discontinued the development of Flurizan for treating Alzheimer’s disease. Surprised? Not me.
As I’ve noted before (in multiple places), I’m not a fan of gamma-secretase modulators for AD. Every trial run so far has failed the main ADAS-cog endpoint and what good is an Alzhiemer’s treatment that doesn’t significantly increase cognition? This is simply math.
As for the deal, there was speculation that Lundbeck had seen some preliminary results that justified paying an un-godly $100M upfront for a drug that failed ADAS-cog in the phase 2 trial. This was obviously not the case and maybe some smart shareholders will punish them today, though I doubt few people will notice.
I hate to be that guy, but I told you so.
On the upside, I guess I can finish the Flurizan history timeline I started a few months ago:
FLURIZAN (rough) History
- 2003 - Begin pivotal II/III trial in prostate cancer
- 2003- Begin phase II Alzheimer’s study
- 2005 - Fails to meet primary endpoint in prostate cancer
- 2005 - Fails to meet primary endpoint in AD study (ADAS-cog)
- 2006 - Begin 2, long, phase III AD studies
- 2007 - Prostate Cancer indication officially scrapped
- May 22, 2008 - Sells Euro AD rights to Lundbeck for $100M upfront
- June 30, 2008 - Fails all endpoints and is discontinued in Alzheimer’s disease.
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Eben is a highly caffeinated business development associate at a small, cash sensitive pharmaceutical company somewhere in Massachusetts. He enjoys cliche-less banter, compartmentalization, non-equilibrium thermodynamics and NPV analysis. Agree or disagree with what he's posted? He encourages comments.
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October 22, 2008 at 12:13 pm
[...] to the lead compounds. A strategy that so far, has yet to have a single success story (see Flurizan ...