Icagen shares plunge on failed asthma trial

Icagen's share price was battered this morning after the develop announced that it is shelving its experimental asthma drug, senicapoc, after it failed a mid-stage trial. Icagen shares plunged 42 percent and were trading at 45 cents this morning.

"While we were encouraged by the results in our first study of allergic asthma, we were disappointed by the lack of effects in this second study of exercise-induced asthma," said Seth Hetherington, SVP of Clinical Development and Regulatory Affairs.

"Going forward we will focus on our lead program, the novel KCNQ opener ICA-105665, which is in Phase IIa proof-of-concept trials in epilepsy and in pain, as well as on our preclinical programs, especially our collaboration with Pfizer for novel treatments for pain," said Icagen CEO P. Kay Wagoner. "Enrollment is going well in both the epilepsy and pain trials, and we are making progress in identifying clinical candidates in our Pfizer collaboration."

This isn't the first time that senicapoc failed to deliver for Icagen. The developer saw its share price plunge [1] in early 2007 after it dropped a late-stage trial for sickle cell anemia which was headed to a near-certain failure.

- check out the press release
[2]- check out the story [3] from Reuters

Related Article:
Icagen boosted by upbeat mid-stage results for asthma [4]
FDA lifts partial hold on Icagen drug [5]
Pfizer, Icagen ink deal [6]