Aslan turns fo­cus to bil­iary tract can­cer as lead drug flops in PhII gas­tric can­cer study

About a year af­ter se­cur­ing the full rights to de­vel­op and com­mer­cial­ize var­l­i­tinib from Ar­ray Bio­Phar­ma $AR­RY, Aslan Phar­ma $AL­SN said the drug failed to con­fer a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in tu­mors of pa­tients with gas­tric can­cer in a mid-stage study.

The Sin­ga­pore-based com­pa­ny — which is run by for­mer BD chief for As­traZeneca Carl Firth and went pub­lic in an un­der­whelm­ing IPO last May — has es­sen­tial­ly aban­doned test­ing the ex­per­i­men­tal drug in pa­tients with gas­tric can­cer and will con­cen­trate on stud­ies in bil­iary tract can­cer and oth­er in­di­ca­tions, it said on Mon­day.

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