Roche drug for Parkinson’s disease suffers failure
Published: Thursday, Dec 19th 2024, 12:30
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The pharmaceutical company Roche has to report a research setback. The antibody "Prasinezumab" has failed to meet the primary endpoint in a phase IIb study. Nevertheless, the results of the study indicate a potential benefit of the drug in early-stage Parkinson's disease.
The "Padova" study showed numerical delays in motor progression and positive trends in several secondary and exploratory endpoints, Roche announced on Thursday. "Prasinezumab" continued to be well tolerated and no new safety signals were observed.
In the meantime, the two open studies will continue in order to investigate the observed effects. Roche will continue to evaluate the data and determine the next steps together with the health authorities.
Share price barely reacts
The news hardly caused any movement on the stock market on Thursday. Although Roche shares were down 1.7 percent in the late morning, the SMI market as a whole lost almost as much at 1.5 percent.
The analysts' comments were relatively relaxed. UBS, for example, said that it was known that the study had a high probability of failure. Although statistical significance had not been achieved, there had nevertheless been progress in the motor skills of individual subgroups of the patients examined.
The experts at Zürcher Kantonalbank also consider the trial results to be price-neutral. After the previous phase II trials with "Prasinezumab", expectations were low.
The "best case scenario" of statistical significance with a subsequent accelerated approval procedure was considered unlikely, commented ZKB: "For this reason, the sales expectations for this active ingredient and in this application are also moderate.
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