Lund­beck adds a Parkin­son's flop to its list of set­backs, writ­ing off a $1.1 bil­lion deal on mid-stage fail­ure

An­ders Götzsche’s shot at R&D glo­ry has end­ed in de­feat at Lund­beck.

The Lund­beck CFO was act­ing chief when he struck a $1.1 bil­lion deal to snare Prex­ton Ther­a­peu­tics and its sin­gle as­set — foliglu­rax — af­ter Kåre Schultz jumped ship to run Te­va. Götzsche agreed to pay €100m in cash and up to €805m in de­vel­op­ment and sales mile­stones to get the one-drug com­pa­ny.

It proved to be a bust in Phase IIa, though, with no sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in “off” times for pa­tients or any sep­a­ra­tion from place­bo for dysk­i­ne­sia, a key sec­ondary. Those “off” pe­ri­ods are marked by phys­i­cal freez­ing or slow­ing of mo­tor func­tions.

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