Renovis Drug Fails in Phase II

Its REN-1654 failed to reach an endpoint in post-herpetic neuralgia.
By TSC Staff ,

California biotech

Renovis

(RNVS)

will stop developing a pain-relief candidate for a condition related to shingles after the drug failed to show efficacy in a phase II trial.

The drug, REN-1654, failed to show a statistically significant reduction in pain compared with a placebo in a study of 94 patients who had post-herpetic neuralgia.

"The heterogeneity in the data was significant, and did not correlate with a treatment effect," the company said in a release. "Despite the fact that this was a proof-of-concept study and the first time an agent with this mechanism of action has been evaluated in this population of PHN patients, these data did not meet our objectives for advancing REN-1654 for this indication."

The company is continuing enrollment as planned in its second Phase II clinical trial with REN-1654 studying patients with sciatica.

"In terms of the etiology of neuropathic pain, sciatica is likely to be very different from PHN," Renovis said.

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