Targacept admits failure in Alzheimer’s trial
pharmafile | July 15, 2014 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Alzheimer's, Aricept, Pfizer, TC-173, Targacept
Targacept is dropping a once promising Alzheimer’s drug from further clinical trials after it failed to beat Pfizer’s Aricept (donepezil) in a mid-stage study.
The US biotech firm confirmed today that the Phase IIb trial of TC-1734, as a treatment for mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease, did not meet its primary endpoint and will be abandoned.
In the trial, TC-1734 failed to show superiority to Pfizer’s ageing Alzheimer’s treatment Aricept, after 52 weeks of treatment.
The trial did not include a placebo arm and was not designed to determine whether TC-1734 is equivalent to the drug, which is the commonly prescribed treatment for the disease.
The co-primary endpoints for the study were measures of cognitive function and global function – the company did not however, give any details as to whether these endpoints had been met.
Dr Stephen Hill, Targacept’s president and chief executive, says: “We are disappointed for Alzheimer’s disease patients and their families. We designed a rigorous study to provide a definitive answer on whether TC-1734 could be a better treatment option than the current standard of care in what has been a very difficult disease area for the development of novel therapeutics.
“Based on these results, we do not intend to invest in further development of TC-1734. I want to thank the investigators, patients and my colleagues at Targacept for their efforts.”
It was the company’s second clinical trial of TC-1734 in Alzheimer’s disease. The first was conducted by AstraZeneca but its outcome was ‘inconclusive’.
This will be a major blow to the firm which had already been forced to cut 38% of its staff, and cut down significantly on its laboratory work after a series of disappointing study results in recent years.
The disease is fast becoming a major health concern for developed countries as around 500,000 are thought to have Alzheimer’s in the UK alone.
There has not been a new treatment for Alzheimer’s for over a decade, and many new promising investigational drugs have failed to prove efficacy in later stage trials.
The area is potentially highly lucrative for pharma should a company manage to it right – but the costs of getting to that point have proven too much for many firms, including now Targacept.
Ben Adams
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