Two years af­ter a wrench­ing set­back, Pro­tag­o­nist touts a slice of da­ta and sets sights on piv­otal tri­al in a sur­pris­ing place: the blood

In 2018, the floor fell out be­neath Pro­tag­o­nist Ther­a­peu­tics. Months ahead of an ex­pect­ed read­out, the com­pa­ny’s first ma­jor tri­al, a Phase IIb test­ing their lead drug in ul­cer­a­tive col­i­tis,  failed a fu­til­i­ty analy­sis. In­vestors sold off en masse. Pro­tag­o­nist searched for an­swers.

Two years lat­er, CEO Di­nesh Pa­tel main­tains the drug had ef­fi­ca­cy – point­ing to a blind­ed re-read con­duct­ed lat­er that year – but the com­pa­ny has moved on. Now, armed with the re­sults from a small proof-of-con­cept, they are ready­ing to put their re­sources be­hind a new lead pro­gram and an­oth­er at­tempt at a piv­otal tri­al in an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent dis­ease.

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