LITTLE ROCK — A closely watched experimental drug to treat Lou Gehrig’s disease failed to work in a late-stage clinical trial, the drug’s developer, Biogen Idec, said Thursday. The company said it would discontinue further work on the drug.
Biogen said the drug was not effective in either slowing the loss of muscular function or prolonging the lives of people with the disease, formally known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.
There were also no signs that the drug, dexpramipexole, worked in any subgroup of patients, Biogen said.
“As a physician who has treated people with ALS, I hoped with all my heart for a different outcome,” Dr. Douglas Kerr, director of neurodegeneration clinical research at Biogen, said in a statement.
ALS, which attacks the nerves that control muscles, causes gradual paralysis and typically results in death within a few years of diagnosis. There are about 30,000 Americans with the disease.
There is only one drug approved to treat it, Rilutek, made by Sanofi, which doctors say has only modest effectiveness.
Business, Pages 22 on 01/07/2013