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Ocrelizumab is a lupus disease drug which was developed by Roche Group, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, together with Biogen Idec with headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Roche Group said Monday they has suspended a late-stage trial for a new lupus and rheumatoid arthritis drug after several patients died from infections.
A review found “the safety risk outweighs the benefits observed in these specific patient populations at this time” after detecting “serious and opportunistic infections, some of which were fatal,” Basel-based Roche said.
The company said it was still testing ocrelizumab for patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. Analysts at Helvea said it was increasingly unlikely that those trials would continue, meaning the predicted 800 million Swiss francs ($748.5 million) sales for the drug wouldn’t be achieved.
Spokesman Alexander Klauser said a final decision on whether to end the trials has yet to be made. Details on how many patients died, where and when will be published once the trial data has been fully analyzed, he said.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
bence güzel bi yaz? faydal? olmu?. te?ekkürler.
April 5th, 2010 at 2:59 am
This is a great move that Roche did rather than to complicate things and cause more damages on their part. At least they make a move that won’t cause more harm.