Sage Therapeutics scraps plans for Parkinson's drug after mid-stage failure
Updates shares, adds company comment in paragraph 6, analyst comment in paragraph 8
By Mariam Sunny
April 17 (Reuters) -Sage Therapeutics SAGE.O said on Wednesday it would stop working on itsexperimental drug for Parkinson'sdisease after the treatmentfailed a mid-stage study, sending the company's shares to a record low in morning trading.
The failure is the latest setback forSage Therapeutics after it andpartner Biogen's BIIB.O pill, Zurzuvae, won U.S. approval for treating postpartumdepression, but wasrejected for clinical depression, which is a much larger market, forcing the company to cut about40% of its workforce.
Sage saidon Wednesday that the drug, dalzanemdor, did not show statistically significant differences in patients with mild cognitive impairment due to Parkinson's, compared with aplacebo, based on a test that measures cognitive ability.
Dalzanemdor is being tested to treat other diseases associated with cognitive impairment, including Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease.
These results are "not necessarily predictive" of the results in the other ongoing studies for dalzanemdor, Chief Medical Officer Laura Gault said on a conference call with analysts.
However, analysts believe that the data could negatively impact confidence in subsequent trials for the drug.
"With today's dalzanemdor failure in Parkinson's disease, we are not altogether surprised by the stock move, considering the lack of any efficacy signals in the trial that may have perpetuated hopes in other indications," RBC capital markets analyst Brian Abrahams wrote in a note.
Parkinson's disease, a movement disorder of the nervous system which causes progressive brain damage, affects about 1 million people in the United States.
The study, which enrolled 86 patients, had the drug showing no difference from placebo on secondary goals of treatment-related adverse events, according to Sage. Most of these safety events were mild-to-moderate, it said.
Shares of Sage tumbled about 22% to $12.20.
Reporting by Anil D'Silva
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