AstraZeneca arm halts trial on neurological disorder treatment
New Delhi: AstraZeneca's Alexion division will stop developing a treatment for the neurological disorder ALS due to lack of efficacy in a late-stage trial, the British drugmaker said on Friday.
The halt follows a review of trial data by an independent panel and is a setback to efforts to find treatments for the rare disease, whose sufferers included late British physicist Stephen Hawking.
For AstraZeneca, which closed its $39 billion buyout of U.S. rare diseases specialist Alexion last month, the drug - branded Ultomiris - could have fetched peak annual sales of $1 billion-$4 billion for ALS and two other disorders, Shore Capital analyst Adam Barker said.
"Failure in ALS does impact that number," Barker said, noting that Ultomiris was already approved for two other conditions and AstraZeneca had "plenty of pipeline optionality within Alexion to offset clinical trial failures."
ALS, whose cause is largely unknown, weakens muscles and causes nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord to break down, affecting physical function and leading to severe disability and death.
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