Another of the psychiatry drugs Neurocrine Biosciences licensed from Takeda has stumbled in the clinic.
The latest midstage flop comes from NBI-1070770, a negative allosteric modulator of the NR2B subunit-containing N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA NR2B) receptor that Neurocrine had been evaluating in a midstage study for major depressive disorder (MDD).
The phase 2 study, which kicked off last March, was designed to assess three doses of NBI-1070770 compared to placebo in 73 adults with MDD who had not adequately responded to at least one antidepressant. The trial’s primary endpoint was change in depression severity by Day 5 as measured on the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale.
But Neurocrine used a short post-market release yesterday to reveal that, despite being well tolerated, NBI-1070770 had failed to beat placebo.
"While we are disappointed that NBI-1070770 did not meet the primary endpoint, there are aspects of the data that warrant further exploration,” Neurocrine Chief Medical Officer Sanjay Keswani, M.D., said in the release.
“Our team will continue to analyze these results so we can determine appropriate next steps,” Keswani added.
It’s not the first time Neurocrine’s bet on Takeda’s neuroscience drugs hasn’t paid off since the San Diego-based company paid the Japanese pharma $120 million upfront for a raft of seven assets back in 2020.
Since then, a GPR139 antagonist from the deal was unable to reduce anhedonia—the inability to feel pleasure—in patients with depression in a separate midstage trial. Meanwhile, a DAAO inhibitor called luvadaxistat failed a pair of phase 2 trials for schizophrenia.
Neurocrine had better luck with an AMPA potentiator called osavampator or NBI-1065845, which scored a win in a phase 2 depression study. Earlier this year, Takeda opted to regain the Japanese rights to osavampator, although Neurocrine still has the rights in the rest of the world.