
No surrender: A group of marquee biotech players bets on the $350M PhIII resurrection story of a heavyweight contender
Anyone reading Biogen’s press release on the flat failure of dexpramipexole in treating ALS couldn’t overlook the note of finality then R&D chief Doug Williams used to mark its grave 10 years ago. The drug failed the primary endpoint. Follow-up analysis left no doubt about the flop.
Williams recalls the readout in ALS as “a crushing blow.” And Biogen was done.
Dex, though, was not.
After being left in the hands of Knopp Biosciences CEO Mike Bozik, the Knopp team kept the faith alive after that bitter setback. Despite the failure in helping ALS patients, there was a clear picture of what it could do: lower eosinophils. And that would emerge as a major target for biologics work that advanced a blockbuster set of cutting-edge therapeutics in asthma, opening airways and rescuing patients dying for a deep breath.
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