Bad news has buffeted Sage Therapeutics Inc. twice in the past few months. Now its placebo-controlled phase II Lightwave study of dalzanemdor in Alzheimer's disease has missed the primary outcome measure, prompting the company to stop development of the NMDA receptor positive allosteric modulator in the indication.
Gene and cell therapies will drive innovation for the next 10 years, Claus Zieler, the chief commercial officer at Astellas Pharma Inc., said in the newest episode of the BioWorld Insider podcast. Developers are on the cusp of breakthroughs because a gene can now be replaced “and that means we can potentially cure a disease rather than intervening in a disease.”
A digital cognitive assessment developed by Braincheck Inc., Braincheck Assess, proved comparable to the gold-standard Montreal Cognitive Assessment in identifying patients with cognitive impairment in a study published in Frontiers in Psychology.
Gene and cell therapies will drive innovation for the next 10 years, Claus Zieler, the chief commercial officer at Astellas Pharma Inc., said in the newest episode of the BioWorld Insider podcast. Developers are on the cusp of breakthroughs because a gene can now be replaced “and that means we can potentially cure a disease rather than intervening in a disease.”
Shares of Scholar Rock Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:SRRK) soared $26.86, or 362%, to close Oct. 7 at $34.28, after the Cambridge, Mass.-based firm disclosed positive top-line data from the phase III Sapphire study testing apitegromab in patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Apitegromab, which Wainwright analyst Andres Maldonado said will “transform SMA” therapy, met the primary endpoint with statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in motor function as measured by the Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale Expanded.
Neurobo Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., reported top-line phase Ia study results of its obesity drug candidate, DA-1726, Sept. 30, causing the company’s shares to lose 11.7% of their value over two days.
Gritstone Bio Inc. has had a tough year and new interim phase II data of Granite haven’t helped. The company called the progression-free survival results “encouraging” in the ongoing phase II/III trial of its personalized neoantigen-targeting immunotherapy for treating front-line microsatellite stable colorectal cancer.
Shattuck Labs Inc. opted, as one analyst put the matter, to do “the right thing early” by ending the clinical program with phase I-stage SL-172154 and shift resources to SL-325, a death receptor 3 antagonist, initially for inflammatory bowel disease, where TL1A/DR3-blocking antibodies have shown compelling monotherapy efficacy.
In August 2024, BioWorld tracked 92 clinical trial updates, a decrease from the 121 reported in July. The month included nine successful phase III trials, three with mixed outcomes and three failures.
South San Francisco-based Kezar Life Sciences Inc. voluntarily stopped its phase IIb Palizade trial of zetomipzomib in active lupus nephritis, following four fatal, or grade 5, serious adverse events of patients enrolled in the Philippines and Argentina.
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