Vec­tura sinks af­ter PhI­II asth­ma tri­al ends in fail­ure, mark­ing an­oth­er set­back

Vec­tura has opt­ed to ax its most ad­vanced, whol­ly owned ther­a­py af­ter it failed a piv­otal Phase III study for asth­ma.

Re­searchers used a neb­u­liz­er to de­liv­er dos­es of budes­onide to pa­tients, but the pos­i­tive trend line they cit­ed for VR475 nev­er hit sta­tis­ti­cal sig­nif­i­cance against a place­bo. The fail­ure marks a no­table set­back for Vec­tura (LSE: VEC), which saw shares slide 12% on the news.

Oral budes­onide has been used to treat Crohn’s dis­ease and ul­cer­a­tive col­i­tis, and the in­haled ver­sion is used with a bron­chodila­tor to end symp­toms of an asth­ma at­tack — so Vec­tura wasn’t make a leap in­to the un­known.

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