Pharmaeceutical company Neurocrine’s anticipated schizophrenia drug, luvadaxistat, failed to have an impact on negative symptoms in a key clinical trial, but still showed promising cognitive benefits.
Neurocrine Biosciences had licensed seven of Takeda’s psychiatry drugs last year for over $2 billion. Luvadaxistat was the furthest along, having entered Phase 2 testing in 2017.
The experimental drug is supposed to help schizophrenia patients cope with “negative symptoms”—a range of difficult-to-treat conditions such as lack of motivation, trouble communicating and limited emotion. The drug is designed to block an enzyme that degrades a certain kind of amino acid important for brain function.
However, according to results from a mid-stage study, in comparison to placebo, patients treated with the drug didn’t perform significantly better, as measured by a scale that assesses the severity of negative symptoms.
While there was excitement around the science behind luvadaxistat, Wall Street analysts lost much of their optimism in the programme last month, after Concert Pharmaceuticals halted development of CTP-692, an experimental drug based on the same mechanism, after trials also saw disappointing results.
Nevertheless, there remains a path ahead for luvadaxistat as Neurocrine is setting up to analyse the drug’s efficacy for cognitive benefits, as it appears that these results at least were in line with scientific predictions.
Source: BioPharma Dive
