Aca­dia shares plunge af­ter CNN probes Nu­plazid deaths; Agios shares surge on re­port that a shaky Cel­gene is scout­ing an­oth­er buy­out

→ Aca­dia $ACAD is feel­ing some heat this morn­ing. CNN post­ed a sto­ry high­light­ing lin­ger­ing con­cerns over the deaths and ad­verse events in­volv­ing pa­tients on Aca­dia’s Parkin­son’s dis­ease psy­chosis drug Nu­plazid, send­ing its shares down 20% in ear­ly trad­ing. The FDA had de­clared Nu­plazid as a break­through ther­a­py wor­thy of VIP treat­ment at the agency. The sto­ry high­lights a non­prof­it’s warn­ing on 244 deaths in­volv­ing pa­tients on the drug in less than a year af­ter its launch. Aca­dia says there’s no rea­son to be­lieve the drug was linked to any of the deaths CNN spot­light­ed in its sto­ry, and the FDA says there is no rea­son to be­lieve there is any safe­ty is­sue that isn’t al­ready cov­ered by the la­bel. Aca­dia is cur­rent­ly study­ing the drug for psy­chosis re­lat­ed to a va­ri­ety of dis­eases.

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