Catalyst Pharma shares fall after mid-stage cocaine addiction trial delayed

Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners (Nasdaq: CPRX) shares fell 18.5% to $1.50 in premarket trading yesterday after it said that mid-stage results of its cocaine addiction study had been delayed.

Catalyst said that it has been advised by the Department of Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program (VACSP) that the availability of top-line results from Catalyst's CPP-109 (vigabatrin) Phase IIb trial for cocaine addiction will be delayed. The VACSP now expects to provide the top-line results to the company during the first half of November 2012. VACSP is the company's collaborator responsible for the management and statistical analyses of the data being collected from the trial.

Patrick McEnany, Catalyst's chairman and chief executive, stated: "Previously, VACSP had advised us that they would be able to provide top-line results from our trial around the end of September 2012. However, they have now indicated that it is taking longer than they had originally anticipated to obtain, verify and lock the drug use data from the trial, therefore delaying the timing of the delivery of the top-line results to us. We still expect to report these results significantly earlier than we had originally anticipated."