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Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Corixa and Medicis halt psoriasis drug
Corixa Corp., the company that last month stopped development of a treatment for melanoma, and partner Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp. are abandoning an experimental therapy for the skin disorder psoriasis.
Study findings on Corixa's PVAC treatment for mild-to-moderate psoriasis didn't warrant further research, the Seattle-based company said. PVAC also failed to meet a treatment goal in a 2001 study.
The companies said they're focusing on developing treatments that have a better chance of success sooner. Money-losing Corixa is cutting 18 percent of its staff and said last month that it dropped the melanoma therapy because as long as seven years would be needed to finish the studies required for U.S. approval.
"Our decision was based on the fact we have better products in our pipeline that could yield results sooner," Medicis Chief Financial Officer Mark Prygocki said in a telephone interview.
The psoriasis drug was "in a relatively early stage of development, so it would have taken four to five years from now to get to market even if it was successful."
"We've long since given up hope PVAC was ever going to emerge from clinical trials," said Ken Trbovich, an analyst at CE Unterberg Towbin in Denver. "This is a formal acknowledgment of what everybody's expected."
Psoriasis is a chronic skin condition that affects more than 7 million Americans, and costs of treating the disease exceed $3 billion a year, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation.
A successful treatment may have sales of as much as $500 million a year, analysts have said.
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