Roivant to stop lung disease drug development after trial failure

Audio By Carbonatix

By Christy Santhosh

(Reuters) -Roivant will discontinue the development of its drug for a rare lung disease after it failed to show treatment benefits in patients in a mid-stage trial.

Shares of the company fell 4% in early trading after Roivant’s unit, Kinevant Sciences, said on Tuesday its once-monthly injectable drug, namilumab, failed to meet the main and secondary goals of a 6-month trial evaluating it in 107 patients with chronic active pulmonary sarcoidosis.

Leerink analyst David Risinger said the trial failure was “immaterial”, adding that the company had previously described the development program to have a high risk-reward ratio.

“We believe the Street’s expectations for success were low,” said Risinger.

Chronic active pulmonary sarcoidosis causes lumps of inflammatory cells to form in the lungs and other organs, leading to tissue damage and organ dysfunction.

Current treatments for the disease are corticosteroids and other immunosuppressants that only suppress the symptoms, which include shortness of breath, chest pain and persistent dry cough.

“Unfortunately science is sometimes humbling, and we are proud to have made the attempt,” Roivant CEO Matt Gline said in a statement.

Sarcoidosis affects 150,000 to 200,000 people in the United States per year, according to the American Lung Association.

Drug developer aTyr Pharma’s efzofitimod is also being tested for the treatment of pulmonary sarcoidosis and is in late-stage development.

(Reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)