Faron Pharmaceuticals Ltd (LON:FARN) has gone some way to understanding why its phase III clinical trial on patients with a condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome didn’t yield the anticipated results.
It said its pharmacokinetic/dynamic study showed that way it formulated its interferon-beta drug Traumakine was not an issue.
WATCH: Faron Pharma confident Traumakine could be ‘very effective’ for ARDS subgroup
Fifty healthy people took part of in the YODA study and Wednesday’s announcement has drawn on data from the first 30.
It was found that regardless of the method of solubilisation, Traumakine delivered the expected level of bioactivity.
Chief executive Dr Markku Jalkanen: "We believe these results confirm that the drug product used in the INTEREST study was robust and effective.
“While analysis continues, we believe the mixed results seen were due to a higher than anticipated placebo response due to high pneumonia portion, interference of corticosteroids on IFN-beta bioactivity and, as recently announced, the impact of a subgroup of patients' single nucleotide polymorphism C/T mutation in their interferon alpha and beta receptor gene."
In mid-morning trading, Faron Pharma shares were 3.6% lower at 54p.
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