PropThink: BMY Cancels Development of Hep C Treatment, Incurs $1.8B Charge
(Thomson Reuters ONE) -
Bristol-Myer's Squibb (NYSE:BMY) announced last night that it would be
officially discontinuing development of its Hepatitis C treatment, known as BMS-
986094, and revealed the financial losses that the failed trials incurred. After
one patient in the trial died, and eight more had to be hospitalized early this
month, BMY voluntarily halted the Phase 2 trials of the product. While the
discontinuation news comes as no surprise, the $1.8 billion charge on the drug
will make a dent in the company's balance sheet. BMY will include the non-cash,
pre-tax impairment charge in its third quarter earnings report, which is related
to research and development of the product. Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired the
candidate in January as part of its $2.5B buyout of Inhibitex. The
discontinuation narrows the field of competition in the race to develop an
effective hepatitis C treatment, for which the global market may be as high as
$20B.
Last week, the FDA requested a partial suspension of Idenix Pharmaceuticals'
(NASDAQ:IDIX) HCV treatment IDX-184 over concerns of similarity to BMY's
cancelled product. PropThink covered the story then, predicting weakness in IDIX
and pointing to Achillion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ACHN) as a promising
alternative play in the HCV field - see that story here. PropThink also
mentioned Gilead Sciences' (NASDAQ:GILD) lead candidate, the nucleotide
polymerase inhibitor GS-7977 (seen here), which has not had the safety concerns
associated with other development products. Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:VRTX)
has HCV products in Phase II testing as well. Idenix shares are down 4% in
premarket trading, and will likely remain weak because of safety concerns
associated with the cancelled BMY product.
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Source: PropThink via Thomson Reuters ONE
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Datum: 24.08.2012 - 16:45 Uhr
Sprache: Deutsch
News-ID 177495
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