Ail­ing Mallinck­rodt's drug for rare, life-threat­en­ing re­nal con­di­tion clears piv­otal study

Em­bat­tled Mallinck­rodt — tar­nished by a cloud of opi­oid lit­i­ga­tion as well as its con­tro­ver­sial­ly ex­pen­sive Ac­thar gel — will en­joy its sliv­er of op­ti­mism that comes with a pos­i­tive piv­otal tri­al.

The UK drug­mak­er on Thurs­day un­veiled da­ta from a late-stage tri­al test­ing the drug, ter­li­pressin, in pa­tients with a life-threat­en­ing, pro­gres­sive rare com­pli­ca­tion of liv­er dis­ease that trig­gers kid­ney fail­ure called he­pa­tore­nal syn­drome type 1 (HRS-1), which af­fects an es­ti­mat­ed 30,000 to 40,000 in the Unit­ed States each year, the com­pa­ny said, adding that pa­tients face a poor prog­no­sis, with a me­di­an sur­vival time of less than two weeks and more than 80% mor­tal­i­ty with­in three months.

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