Idorsia to drop binge eating indication as Phase IIa trial fails

Swiss biotech Idorsia’s (SIX: IDIA) shares were up 1.4% at 13.71 francs by early afternoon today, having initially dropped to 13.26 francs, despite announcing disappointing Phase IIa results for its ACT-539313, a selective orexin-1 receptor antagonist.

ACT-539313 did not show an improvement over placebo in reducing the number of binge eating days per week in adult patients with moderate to severe binge eating disorder – the primary endpoint was therefore not met. ACT-539313 was very well tolerated over the treatment period of 12 weeks.

Commenting on the findings, Idorsia’s head of global clinical development, Alberto Gimona, said: “Assessing pharmaceutical intervention in disorders such as binge eating, when we target modification of the behaviors underpinning the disorder is very challenging. The result is obviously disappointing for the team and investigators who flawlessly executed the study, and of course for the patients affected by this disorder. The study confirmed the encouraging safety profile seen in the pharmacology studies, but it is clear that we will not pursue the binge eating disorder indication.”