Xenon’s lead in-house drug flops in a mid-stage test and stock plunges low­er

Xenon Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has an­oth­er set­back to re­port.

Twen­ty months af­ter its drug TV-45070 failed a mid-stage os­teoarthri­tis study in Te­va’s hands, the Cana­di­an biotech $XENE re­ports that its lead, whol­ly owned top­i­cal drug XEN801 flopped in a Phase II tri­al on ac­ne.

Their drug — a top­i­cal stearoyl Co-A de­sat­urase-1, or SCD1 in­hibitor — failed both the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary end­point in the study, which tracked le­sions over 12 weeks com­pared to a place­bo. CEO Si­mon Pim­stone im­me­di­ate­ly turned to fu­ture cat­a­lysts for its oth­er drugs, writ­ing off the ef­fort.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.