More than two years af­ter lit­tle Swiss biotech Ad­dex Ther­a­peu­tics post­poned a Phase IIb/III tri­al in­def­i­nite­ly due to the then-nascent Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, it’s throw­ing in the tow­el.

As with two years ago, Covid was to blame.

“We took this de­ci­sion be­cause it was not fea­si­ble to con­tin­ue the study at such a slow re­cruit­ment rate in the cur­rent en­vi­ron­ment. I’d like to em­pha­size that it was not dipraglu­rant re­lat­ed and we con­tin­ue to be­lieve in the po­ten­tial of this com­pound as a treat­ment for PD-LID,” CEO Tim Dy­er said in a state­ment.

Ad­dex shares $ADXN on Nas­daq sunk about 47.5% in pre-mar­ket trad­ing Fri­day.

The com­pa­ny had hoped to test dipraglu­rant, a neg­a­tive al­losteric mod­u­la­tor of mGlu5, as a po­ten­tial treat­ment for the un­con­trolled, in­vol­un­tary move­ment as­so­ci­at­ed with lev­odopa use in Parkin­son’s pa­tients. But these pa­tients were al­so at high risk for Covid-19, which led to con­cerns about par­tic­i­pa­tion in clin­i­cal stud­ies, ac­cord­ing to Ad­dex.

Cou­pled with staffing short­ages and turnover with­in study sites, the com­pa­ny said pa­tient re­cruit­ment took a big hit.

A clin­i­cal­tri­als.gov post­ing not­ed an ac­tu­al study start date last Au­gust, with a tar­get en­roll­ment of 140 pa­tients and es­ti­mat­ed com­ple­tion in Au­gust 2023.

Found­ed in 2002, Ad­dex is fo­cused on oral­ly avail­able small mol­e­cule drugs that al­loster­i­cal­ly mod­u­late tar­gets for neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders. While the dipraglu­rant pro­gram in Parkin­son’s had been among its most ad­vanced, it’s al­so de­vel­op­ing a mGlu2 pos­i­tive al­losteric mod­u­la­tor to treat epilep­sy in part­ner­ship with J&J’s Janssen, while In­di­v­ior li­censed its GABAB pos­i­tive al­losteric mod­u­la­tor for sub­stance use dis­or­der.

“We now plan to fo­cus on ad­vanc­ing our pre­clin­i­cal port­fo­lio to­wards the clin­ic and pur­su­ing strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tions for se­lect­ed pro­grams, while we con­cur­rent­ly fo­cus on de­liv­er­ing un­der our strate­gic part­ner­ship with In­di­v­ior,” Dy­er added. “Our strate­gic part­ner, Janssen is al­so ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er da­ta from the Phase 2 study of ADX71149 in epilep­sy pa­tients in the fourth quar­ter of this year.”

Though Decibel Therapeutics has largely pivoted toward gene therapies for the inner ear, its lead clinical candidate simply aims to protect cancer patients from chemotherapy-induced hearing loss. On Tuesday, the biotech presented its first efficacy data for the program, and execs like what they see.

Decibel reported interim results from a Phase Ib study showing the experimental drug, dubbed DB-020, largely protected a small group of patients from losing their hearing. Researchers used a particularly unique study design, administering the compound in one of each patients’ ears before they received cisplatin chemotherapy and placebo in the other.

Astellas and Sutro Biopharma are linking arms on a new field of antibody-drug conjugates that they hope will improve upon existing cancer immunotherapies.

The Tokyo pharma will dole out $90 million in cash for the collaboration, the companies said Monday afternoon. That upfront payment will extend the South San Francisco biotech’s runway from late 2023 into the first half of 2024, Cowen analysts noted.