GSK punts a failed car­dio drug to a biotech start­up — which has a new de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy in mind

More than 3 years af­ter losmapi­mod proved to be a turkey in a late-stage car­dio study at Glax­o­SmithK­line, the drug has been dust­ed off and hand­ed over to a start­up, which has some new plans in mind for this ther­a­py.

Re­searchers at Ful­crum have been prob­ing the role that the DUX4 gene plays in trig­ger­ing rare cas­es of fa­cioscapu­lo­humer­al mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy. They con­clud­ed that a se­lec­tive p38α/β MAPK in­hibitor could do the job on DUX4, and GSK had one on the back shelf it hadn’t touched in years.

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