AB Science goes back to the drawing board with masitinib in ALS

France’s AB Science (Euronext: AB) will not fight the latest negative recommendation that it has received from the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Committee for Human Medicinal Products (CHMP) for masitinib.

The CHMP gave the  thumbs down to the tyrosine kinase inhibitor in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at the committee’s April meeting, adding to the negative recommendations in systemic mastocytosis last year, and in 2014, on that occasion as a possible pancreatic cancer therapy.

AB has tried developing the compound to treat gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), gathering positive data in comparison with Sutent (sunitinib) in 2012 before being rejected by regulators the following year.