GTx's CEO finds the door as the company moves on from a PhIII failure

Former GTx CEO Mitchell Steiner

After nearly 25 years at biotech GTx ($GTXI), CEO Mitchell Steiner has stepped down from the top spot, leaving behind a drug developer working to salvage its pipeline after a devastating late-stage setback.

Cofounder and COO Marc Hanover has taken over as interim chief, and GTx said Steiner is leaving to "pursue other business interests."

Meanwhile, the Memphis biotech is working to move on from an August Phase III failure in which its top prospect, the muscle-building enobosarm, failed to meet its primary endpoints of improving physical function in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Those results sent GTx's shares down roughly 70%, a drop from which the company has yet to recover. In October, the biotech let about 60% of its staff go and reduced its executives' salaries, working to conserve cash and keep the doors open.

Now, in its Steiner-free future, GTx plans to circle the wagons on enobosarm, working through clinical trials to file a European application in the first quarter of 2015, wrapping up a Phase II study of the drug in advanced breast cancer and meeting with the FDA to hash out a regulatory path for enobosarm for cancer-related weight loss. The company is also developing GTx-758, a mid-stage hormonal treatment for castration-resistant prostate cancer.

- read the statement