Cephalon has mixed fortunes with new drugs

Cephalon has announced that its treatment for seizures, Gabitril, failed to show a statistically significant advantage over other treatments for a possible use in patients with generalised anxiety disorder.

Although the drug showed effectiveness in reducing the number of seizures in epilepsy patients who took Gabitril as an add-on therapy, Cephalon said it would take time to complete an analysis of the failed study before deciding whether or not it should continue the drug’s development in other areas of treatment.

However, the biopharmaceutical company received some promising news for its asthma drug, CEP-1347. In a phase II trial, users of the drug demonstrated different levels of increased lung function, without any evidence of safety or tolerability concerns.

CEP-1347 is designed to alter the MAP3K9 kinase genetic pathway that was identified by deCODE genetics – a company with which Cephalon has a research and licensing agreement. Altering the MAP3K9 kinase pathway activity in asthma patients could have a beneficial effect, according to the study.

Kari Stefansson, chief executive officer of the Icelandic genetic research firm, remarked: “Through our genetics work we have put our finger on an important biological pathway involved in asthma. The results of this trial indicate that CEP-1347 can positively affect this pathway in a safe and well-tolerated manner.”

“This is an exciting opportunity to bring forward a novel, non-steroidal treatment for one of the most common chronic conditions in the industrialised world. We presented the data from the trial to Cephalon at the end of last week, and we look forward to discussing with them how to further examine the beneficial effects of CEP-1347 in asthma patients,” he concluded.

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