Shares of Biogen (NASDAQ: BIIB) threatened to fall through the floor Thursday after the company halted the trials of a Alzheimer's disease drug Aducanumab.
"This disappointing news confirms the complexity of treating Alzheimer's disease and the need to further advance knowledge in neuroscience. We are incredibly grateful to all the Alzheimer's disease patients, their families and the investigators who participated in the trials and contributed greatly to this research," said CEO Michel Vounatsos.
The study of the experimental Alzheimer's disease drug is a joint project between Biogen and a Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai. The decision to stop the trials is based on results of a futility analysis conducted by an independent data monitoring committee, which indicated the trials were unlikely to meet their primary endpoint upon completion.
The recommendation to stop the studies was not based on safety concerns.
Aducanumab is an investigational compound being studied for the treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease.
Biogen licensed aducanumab from Neurimmune under a collaborative development and license agreement. Aducanumab is a human monoclonal antibody (mAb) derived from a de-identified library of B cells collected from healthy elderly subjects with no signs of cognitive impairment or cognitively impaired elderly subjects with unusually slow cognitive decline using Neurimmune’s technology platform called Reverse Translational Medicine (RTM).
In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for the development of aducanumab, a process allowing priority reviews by the FDA for drugs deemed as having potential to treat serious conditions and tackle key unmet medical needs.
Shares in Biogen slouched $91.13, or 28.4%, to $229.46
