Spring Bank Pharma shuts down HBV drug development following patient death
pharmafile | January 30, 2020 | News story | Research and Development | Spring Bank, patient death, pharma
Biopharma firm Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals has revealed it has taken the decision to terminate all further development of inarigivir soproxil for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) following the death of a participant during Phase 2 trials of the drug.
The death was said to be caused by “the occurrence of unexpected serious adverse events”, the company said.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of a patient in our CATALYST 2 trial. Because we are guided by an overriding interest in protecting patients, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue the further development of inarigivir for the treatment of HBV at Spring Bank,” said Martin Driscoll, President and CEO of Spring Bank. “We will continue to work in close collaboration with external experts and our clinical study investigators to provide the care necessary for all study patients and will continue to conduct a series of investigative actions to better understand the unexpected serious adverse events observed in our Phase 2b programme.”
Furthermore, Spring Bank confirmed it has no plans to continue working in the HBV space and will instead focus on the development of its lead product candidate SB 11285 in immune-oncology and inflammation.
In accordance with this, the company is cutting any further funding to its chimeric oligonucleotide antisense (CASO) programme in the treatment of HBV, which will generate enough funds, it said, to support continued operation until late 2022.
“We will devote our resources to advancing multiple programs in our STING product portfolio, including our SB 11285 IV STING agonist clinical program in oncology, our STING antagonist compounds for inflammatory diseases, and our STING agonist ADC program,” continued Mr. Driscoll. “By the end of 2020, we plan to generate sufficient data from our Phase 1a/1b IV STING agonist program to enable advancement into a Phase 2 clinical trial, initiate IND-enabling activities for an orally-available STING antagonist and progress our pipeline of STING agonist ADCs.”
Matt Fellows
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