Shares of the UK's Minster Pharmaceuticals went into free fall this morning, losing 63 percent of their value after the developer announced that its migraine drug tonabersat failed a Phase IIb trial.
Studying the drug's effect on 500 patients enrolled in the trial, researchers said that tonabersat failed to reach the primary endpoint: A significant reduction in migraine attacks during the final eight weeks of the 20-week study. Researchers are still evaluating the drug's performance on secondary endpoints but emphasized that the drug continued to perform safely.
The data was "disappointing and surprising given the encouraging results of earlier studies," said CEO Paul Sharpe. "We need to conduct a detailed analysis of the TEMPUS results and to consider the potential of tonabersat in other indications before updating shareholders on our strategy for the compound."
Minster's share price slid to 9.13 pence this morning. The developer has a little more than $10 million in cash and a market capitalization of around 5.13 million pounds.
- here's Minster release
- read the story from the Silicon Fen Business Report