Biogen walks away from billion-dollar deal after poor readout

14 December 2018

Shares in Applied Genetic Technologies (Nasdaq: AGTC) plummeted almost 50% on Thursday, after the firm revealed biotech major Biogen (Nasdaq: BIIB) was tearing up a 2015 deal that could have been worth a billion dollars.

AGTC said top-line interim six-month data from its Phase I/II trial of rAAV2tYF-CB-hRS1, an investigational AAV-based gene therapy showed “no signs of clinical activity.”

Disappointed with the outcome, Biogen has now handed back rights to the XLRS and X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP) programs as well as three other partnered discovery programs.

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