Pfiz­er part­ner Op­ko re­ports a PhI­II fail­ure for growth hor­mone, but tries to steer out of a crash

Op­ko Health $OPK re­port­ed that its long act­ing growth hor­mone — part­nered with Pfiz­er — failed a Phase III study. But the biotech tried to steer out of a crash by claim­ing that it may have iden­ti­fied “out­liers” in the study that could ex­plain the flop as some­thing oth­er than a flop.

“On the pri­ma­ry end­point of change in trunk fat mass from base­line to 26 weeks, there was no sta­tis­ti­cal dif­fer­ence be­tween hGH-CTP and place­bo,” Op­ko re­port­ed. “How­ev­er, af­ter un­blind­ing the study, Op­ko iden­ti­fied one or more out­liers that may have af­fect­ed the pri­ma­ry out­come. As a re­sult, Op­ko is un­der­tak­ing fur­ther re­view of the study pop­u­la­tion as prompt­ly as pos­si­ble.”

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