J&J takes a $630M as­set hit on the books, shut­ter­ing PhI­Ib tri­als as its $1.75B RSV drug teeters on the brink

Al­most ex­act­ly 4 years af­ter J&J paid $1.75 bil­lion for a lit­tle biotech called Alios, one of the cen­tral drugs fea­tured in the deal ap­pears to be in deep trou­ble. Re­searchers at the com­pa­ny vol­un­tar­i­ly sus­pend­ed ad­vanced tri­als on the drug months ago and now the phar­ma gi­ant is tak­ing a heavy hit on the books as it re­assess­es the drug’s fast-dwin­dling as­set val­ue.

The phar­ma gi­ant re­vealed in an SEC fil­ing that it is tak­ing an af­ter-tax im­pair­ment charge of about $630 mil­lion on AL-8176 — lu­mic­itabine — an an­ti-RSV drug de­signed to pre­vent a com­mon res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tion in chil­dren. And it adds that it will keep an eye out on the rest of the $900 mil­lion still on the books, sug­gest­ing they may have a com­plete write-off on their hands.

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