Depression is a major mental disorder that affects hundreds of millions of people around the world. As such, there’s a massive market for treatments that effectively help patients return to normal.
While some drugs out there, such as SSRI’s, affect the brain’s neurochemistry to help handle depression in patients, there are some inconvenient side effects. Sage Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SAGE) has been developing a promising depression treatment up until this time. However, things just took a turn for the worst when the company reported that its key depression drug failed to see expected results in a crucial phase 3 clinical trial.
Sage ended up saying on Thursday that patients taking their new anti-depressant drug didn’t see any better results than those in the placebo group, a damning admission for any drug developer. Although the company ended up noting that there was a mild degree of reduced depression after a while and that almost 10% of the patients in the trial might not have taken the drug after all, strangely enough, it’s still a massive flop in the eyes of biotech investors around the world.
“This study did not meet the primary endpoint. With that, the data are supportive of the activity of SAGE-217 in MDD given the statistical significance at the majority of timepoints, and in relevant populations,” said Jeff Jonas, Sage’s CEO in an official press release. “Notwithstanding the finding on the primary endpoint, the drug displays good activity on most measures. We understand that drug development is an iterative process.”
This drug, SAGE-217, was designed to affect the neurochemistry of patients faster than conventional depression treatments while remaining just as potent if not more so. Sage did note that on days 3, 8, and 12 of the two-week trial, patients did notice improvements to their depression levels.
The fact that around one-tenth of patients didn’t seem to take the drug after all also didn’t help with the results. While the trial failed to meet its primary endpoints, the company argues there is still some promise behind SAGE-217, and suggest that in time, they’ll be able to see some interesting results in the future.
It definitely was a terrible piece of news for the $3.1 billion market cap company, with shares falling by around 60% in light of this news. Before this announcement, most of Wall Street was pretty optimistic about the company, with around three-quarters of all analysts covering Sage giving a “buy” rating. However, this is likely to change substantially within the next couple of days as many revise their price targets for the stock.
Sage Therapeutics Company Profile
Sage Therapeutics Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the study of nervous system and brain to discover medicines to treat life-threatening, rare central nervous system disorders.
The company’s lead development program is SAGE-547, it is in Phase 3 clinical trials for super-refractory status epilepticus; and the SAGE-217 program which is in Phase 2 clinical trials for post-partum depression, essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease and major depressive disorder. The company is also developing several other compounds for treatment that is in the early stage of development. – Warrior Trading News
