AstraZeneca abandons Targacept anti-depressant
AstraZeneca has thrown in the towel on an experimental antidepressant targeting nicotine receptors after the drug licensed from Targacept failed in remaining clinical trials, thinning out its pipeline further.
Britain’s second-biggest drug maker will take an impairment charge of $50m, representing the rest of the value of TC-5214, which had already seen an earlier write-down after two previous Phase III studies also missed their targets.
TC-5214 was initially deemed a potential multibillion-dollar-a-year seller as the first in a new class of medicines that work by calming neuronal nicotine receptors in the brain.