Block­buster dreams quashed, Iron­wood drops As­traZeneca's $1.3B gout drug dis­as­ter

As­traZeneca paid $1.3 bil­lion to buy the ex­per­i­men­tal gout drug lesin­u­rad. They hand­ed over US rights to Iron­wood $IR­WD for much, much less two years ago — af­ter it was ap­proved on mixed ef­fi­ca­cy and safe­ty da­ta. And now the Cam­bridge, MA-based biotech is punt­ing it back af­ter watch­ing the treat­ment floun­der on the mar­ket.

Iron­wood dis­missed lesin­u­rad (Zu­rampic) in its Q2 re­port. CEO Pe­ter Hecht summed it up this way:

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