Gilead Ends Trial of Novel Drug for Rare Lung Disease on Lack of effectiveness

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Gilead Sciences Inc., the world’s major maker of AIDS drugs, said it is stopping a late stage study of an investigational lung disease therapy because it did not help patients with the state, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The drug, ambrisentan, was in the last stage of testing usually necessary for U.S. approval, the Foster City, California- based company said in a report today. The decision to halt the study followed an interim study of data by a monitoring committee and the company’s review, according to the report.

Gilead said on Dec. 20 that it had decided to obtain Arresto Biosciences Inc., of Palo Alto, California, for $225 million. Arresto’s lead investigational drug is a monoclonal antibody being tested for cancer and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, the similar fatal lung disease that Gilead’s currently canceled study for ambrisentan was targeting. “Gilead is conduct a thorough review of the data and will converse the full consequences of this analysis to the medical community when they are accessible,” Gilead said in the statement.

Nathan Kaiser, a Gilead spokesman, said there is no association between the decision to stop the ambrisentan study and the company’s contract with Arresto. “Gilead was just conversant of the results of the data monitor committee this week,” Kaiser said in a telephone interview today. Ambrisentan conventional U.S. approval in 2007 as a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension, a tapering of the artery that causes smallness of breath and heart failure. It is market under the brand name Letairis. Gilead share fell 2 percent to $35.60 at 6:07 p.m. New York time in extensive trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market after finishing down 22 cents to $36.34.

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