Scoop: Ascletis' NASH subsidiary scraps US PhII trial in favor of China
Gannex Pharma, the NASH-focused subsidiary of China’s Ascletis, has withdrawn a US-based Phase II trial originally slated to begin in December 2023.
The biotech disclosed on a federal clinical trial database that the trial was “canceled due to business reasons.”
The update came just weeks after the drug involved, an oral small molecule candidate and THRβ agonist named ASC41, became the subject of a lawsuit in which Viking Therapeutics accused Ascletis of stealing trade secrets. But the decision actually predated the lawsuit, according to a spokesperson, who told Endpoints News that Gannex decided at the end of 2021 not to pursue a US Phase II trial of ASC41.
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