Is this the beginning of the end for French biotech AB Science? The group, which has staked everything on a single molecule against a wide variety of diseases, must stop all ongoing trials because of possible heart problems. “AB Science announces the voluntary discontinuation of clinical studies of masitinib worldwide,” the group said in a statement released Tuesday morning. He immediately requested the suspension of his title on the stock market.
Created in 2001, AB Science has staked almost everything on this molecule which it wants to make a real pharmaceutical Swiss Army knife but which has not yet been prescribed for any disease. Masitinib blocks the function of the mast cell, a cell suspected of playing the role of control tower of the immune system. By influencing its functioning, society hopes to be able to provide a response to a whole series of diseases. Thus, the interrupted trials concerned Charcot’s disease, mastocytosis – a blood disorder that causes urticaria in particular – and even the overwhelming health news of the moment, Covid-19. The group had also completed rather encouraging tests on the effectiveness of this molecule against the development of cancers, such as that of the prostate.
>> To read also – Covid-19: Masitinib from AB Science, a promising treatment?
The interruption of the current tests is therefore potentially catastrophic news for the group, especially since it is not a simple concern of efficiency. It is the safety of the treatment that is in question. AB Science has identified a risk of “ischemic heart disease”, in other words a lack of oxygenation of the heart, in patients who received the treatment. This risk remains to be confirmed, and the group will assess the data at its disposal in collaboration with the health authorities concerned, including that of France. They will determine if there is a cause and effect relationship.
Roller coaster on the stock market
Even if so, AB Science could save their treatment if the potential benefits of the treatment outweigh the risks. But “in view of the indications targeted by AB Science, it seems unlikely,” judge with AFP Jamila El Bougrini, biotech specialist at stock market analyst Invest Securities. In fact, either the diseases targeted by AB Science do not directly threaten the lives of patients, or, when this is the case as for cancers, there are potentially other treatments available than masitinib.
Consequently, “if the agencies decide that there is a causal link and it is decided to definitively stop all clinical trials, the full potential of masitinib will be called into question,” said Ms. El Bougrini. And “if masitinibib falls back to zero, we are in a society that falls back to zero in terms of valuation,” she concludes. The future of AB Science therefore hangs on the conclusions of the health authorities, a process that will surely take several months.
>> Read also – Alzheimer’s: high hopes for masitinib from AB Science
This is the latest episode in a string of twists and turns that for nearly a decade have seen the band hit rock bottom before ever bouncing back. AB Science had so far experienced its worst episode in 2017, when the French and European authorities had repeatedly refused to authorize its treatment in different indications, deeming the tests carried out to be too unconvincing. The group then fell on the stock market, where it had spent a long period at its lowest. But, after relaunching trials and in particular reporting favorable results in pancreatic cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, it recovered to finish 2020 close to its historic high, at around twenty euros. action. Lately, he had relapsed at the end of May after his last results for prostate cancer, but this decline had surprised analysts, such as Ms. El Bougrini, because the tests had not turned out bad.
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