Centes­sa ax­es lead pro­gram af­ter a pa­tient in kid­ney dis­ease safe­ty study is hos­pi­tal­ized

Less than four months af­ter dos­ing the first pa­tients in a piv­otal study for its lead pro­gram, Centes­sa is in­stead re­vers­ing course in a big way.

The biotech said Thurs­day that it would dis­con­tin­ue de­vel­op­ment for its lead pro­gram, the kid­ney drug lix­i­vap­tan, af­ter dos­ing the first Phase III pa­tient on Feb. 24. Centes­sa said it made the de­ci­sion once a pa­tient in a safe­ty study was hos­pi­tal­ized for el­e­vat­ed liv­er en­zyme lev­els, and it re­al­ized the drug wouldn’t be able to de­liv­er a dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed pro­file from an al­ready ap­proved drug in au­to­so­mal dom­i­nant poly­cys­tic kid­ney dis­ease, which had been the pri­ma­ry in­di­ca­tion.

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