Israeli drug development company Intec Pharma (Nasdaq: NTEC) is plunging on Wall Street after the company announced the failure of a Phase III trial on its lead product, a slow release accordion pill for treating the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease, to achieve its endpoints. In premarket trading on Nasdaq, Intec Pharma's share price is down 79% on Nasdaq at $0.63, after losing 24% in the past few days prior to publication of the results.
Intec Pharma's pill did not demonstrate any better performance than existing treatments on the market, which are not delayed release. The trial had sought to reduce the amount of 'off time' in Parkinson's patients in which they are unable to move due to an absence of dopamine in the brain.
Secondary endpoints were also not achieved in the trial such as the reduction during on-time of problematic symptoms such as dyskinesia.
Intec Pharma CEO Jeffrey Meckler said, "We are disappointed that the ACCORDANCE study didn't meet its target endpoints with statistical significance. While the data suggests that the AP CD/LD did achieve an acceptable safety profile and did treat Parkinson's disease symptoms, it did not achieve a statistically significant superiority to standard immediate release levodopa therapy."
In principle, the failure of the trial does not rule out use of Intec pharma's platform, which is being looked into by several big pharma companies including Novartis.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 22, 2019
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