Acorda Therapeutics reports that a milestone clinical study did not show sufficient efficacy to support further development of dalfampridine to improve post-stroke walking difficulties (PSWD).
“The study indicated there was activity related to walking in people with PSWD, as suggested by the prior Phase II study, but overall this was not sufficiently clinically meaningful,” said Ron Cohen, M.D., president and CEO of Acorda. “This outcome underscores the risks that companies in the biopharmaceutical industry must take in order to develop innovative medicines. Over the past 3 years, we have successfully diversified our pipeline portfolio to account for this risk. We plan to focus R&D resources on developing our promising late-stage Parkinson’s disease therapies, CVT-301 and tozadenant, as well as advancing our earlier-stage assets, CVT-427 in migraine, SYN120 in Parkinson’s disease dementia, and rHIgM22 in multiple sclerosis.”
Healthcare sector investor and analyst Doug House notes that Acorda fell 13% premarket on only 450 shares in response to the announcement. Dalfampridine is currently approved to help patients with multiple sclerosis walk.
