Vaxart reports PhII defeat for a legacy antiviral from Aviragen — shares slide
When Vaxart picked Aviragen Therapeutics for the reverse merger that got it on the Nasdaq, the South San Francisco biotech highlighted a Phase II treatment for condyloma caused by HPV as particularly interesting among the antiviral programs it was inheriting. Seven months later, Vaxart is finding out the drug, like many of Aviragen’s previous therapies, might be a failure after all.
Vaxart reports today that teslexivir (BTA074) has flunked the primary efficacy endpoint: complete clearance of baseline condyloma, or small bumps on genitals, by week 16. In a double blind trial evaluating the teslexivir 5% gel in 218 patients, only 30.6% of the drug arm — not a statistically significant difference from 23.3% in the placebo group — completely cleared baseline condyloma by week 16.
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