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| Botox--Courtesy of Allergan |
Johnson & Johnson's ($JNJ) years-long effort to develop a long-acting successor to Botox has been jettisoned out of the Big Pharma's pipeline. The pharma giant says that it is discontinuing work on the neurotoxin program for PurTox, even though its Mentor subsidiary has wrapped three late-stage studies on the aesthetic therapy for smoothing out facial wrinkles.
A small but unspecified number of staffers are getting the ax as a result of the move, and Mentor--which had once touted PurTox's potential to go on for expanded approvals to treat migraine and more--will stick to its knitting in the breast augmentation and reconstruction business.
"We are winding down the neurotoxin program in a responsible manner," J&J said in a statement sent to FierceBiotech. "Regrettably, this involves the elimination of a small number of positions in the United States. Severance packages will be offered to all eligible employees impacted by this decision and support services will be offered to all employees."
J&J's Mentor group had talked up PurTox from time to time as a longer-acting improvement on Botox, Allergan's blockbuster facial therapy, which was recently approved for treating migraines. Allergan ($AGN) racked up sales of about $2 billion for Botox last year, with a projection of $3 billion by 2017.
That kind of cash has attracted a number of biotech rivals. Revance Therapeutics ($RVNC), for example, has an injection-free program in late-stage development which helped raise $96 million in a recent IPO.
J&J completed its last Phase III study on PurTox back in 2011, according to ClinicalTrials.gov. Two earlier studies had wrapped before J&J bought Mentor in 2009. Since 2011, though, there hasn't been much said about the treatment until the burial announcement came out.
- get the Reuters story