Safe­ty threat forces Enan­ta to scrap HBV tri­als — send­ing dis­cov­ery team back to draw­ing board

A Mass­a­chu­setts biotech will dis­con­tin­ue the de­vel­op­ment of its oral drug in­tend­ed to treat pa­tients suf­fer­ing from chron­ic he­pati­tis B in­fec­tions, the com­pa­ny said Thurs­day.

Enan­ta Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals will no longer de­vel­op EDP-721. The news comes af­ter safe­ty sig­nals were seen in healthy par­tic­i­pants in a Phase I tri­al af­ter they were ad­min­is­tered the drug, and de­spite a clean safe­ty pro­file demon­strat­ed in pre­clin­i­cal tri­als.

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