Once a block­buster-to-be, Te­va fi­nal­ly sounds taps for its PhI­II los­er laquin­i­mod

This was the year that the old man­age­ment team at Te­va once con­fi­dent­ly pre­dict­ed that its lead drug laquin­i­mod would be ap­proved for mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis. In­stead, it’s time for the new ex­ec­u­tive team at the com­pa­ny to fi­nal­ly sound taps for a drug that of­fered some in­trigu­ing sig­nals of ef­fi­ca­cy but failed one cru­cial pri­ma­ry end­point af­ter the next.

Ac­tive Biotech, the Swedish com­pa­ny that out-li­censed the drug to Te­va 14 years ago for clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, put out a note this morn­ing that Te­va had re­turned all rights to the drug, which flopped in mul­ti­ple Phase III stud­ies for pro­gres­sive and re­laps­ing/re­mit­ting MS as well as a mid-stage tri­al for Hunt­ing­ton’s dis­ease. The last fail­ure was record­ed just a few weeks ago.

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