Another Alzheimer's hope hits the dust

Axovant Sciences (Nasdaq: AXON) saw around $1.8 billion wiped of its market cap on Tuesday, as the company announced its Alzheimer’s disease drug candidate intepirdine failed in a late-stage trial. The shares slumped as much as 70% to $7.37 pre-market.

The Phase III MINDSET clinical trial of Axovant investigational drug intepirdine in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) who were receiving background donepezil therapy did not meet its co-primary efficacy endpoints.

At 24 weeks, patients treated with 35mg of intepirdine did not experience improvement in cognition or in measures of activities of daily living as measured by the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-Cog) and by the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study-Activities of Daily Living scale (ADCS-ADL), respectively, compared to patients treated with placebo. In the study, intepirdine was generally well tolerated.