Athira Pharma tanks as fosgonimeton misses in Alzheimer’s trial

US clinical stage CNS drug developer Athira Pharma (Nasdaq: ATHA) saw its share crash 78.4% to $0.61 yesterday, after it announced another disappoint with its Alzheimer’s candidate.

Athira released top-line results from its Phase II/III LIFT-AD clinical trial of fosgonimeton, a hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) positive modulator, in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease (AD), showing that neither the trial's primary endpoint (the Global Statistical Test (GST), a combination of results from measures of cognition (ADAS-Cog11) and function (ADCS-ADL23)) nor its key secondary endpoints of ADAS-Cog11 and ADCS-ADL23 reached statistical significance compared with placebo at 26 weeks.

However, it noted, both components of GST, cognition (ADAS-Cog11) and function (ADCS-ADL23), directionally favored fosgonimeton treatment, and in pre-specified subgroups characterized by more rapid disease progression (moderate AD and APOE4 carriers), cognition and function improved or stabilized in the fosgonimeton treated group