Targeted failure of the week. Post No 24. Bardoxolone

Well, it’s a little bit funny but we have failures of targeted medicine literally EVERY DAY! Today we have bardoxolone which is an orally-available first-in-class synthetic triterpenoid. It is an inducer of the Nrf2 pathway, which can suppress oxidative stress and inflammation – i.e. “targeted”-paradigm drug. And Abbott suffers pretty much economically:

Just three months before its planned split into two companies, Abbott Laboratories is suffering a significant setback after a Phase III trial for a chronic kidney disease treatment was ended due to an excessive number of deaths and serious adverse events in patients. The actual number of deaths was not specified by Reata Pharmaceuticals, which is developing the drug.

Two years ago, Abbott paid $450 million to Reata – and agreed to another $350 million in milestone payments – for the bardoxolone medication . Some Wall Street analysts believed could become a $1 billion or more blockbuster seller and fuel the growth of the research-based pharma operation to be spun off this coming January.

Now, investors are concerned the spin off, to be called AbbVie, will have to rely too heavily on sales of Humira, which generates $8 billion in annual sales. Following the news, Abbott stock fell nearly 5 percent on excessively heady trading volume. Just yesterday, Abbott disclosed that AbbVie’s annual tax rate will be higher than expected, which will hurt its earnings.

The decision to the end trial, which was called Beacone, was recommended by an Independent Data Monitoring committee. The drug was being tested in patients with stage 4 chronic kidney disease and type 2 diabetes. Reata added that regulators have been notified, but did not provide any details on side effects

Well. It should be expected. I wonder: how many risk managers work for Abbott? And what is the scale of their bonuses?