Prothena to lay off majority of staff; Zealand shares obesity drug data
Today, a brief rundown of news involving Prothena and Zealand Pharma, as well as updates from Biogen and Sanofi that you may have missed.
Prothena is laying off 63% of its workforce to focus resources on its remaining wholly owned and partnered drug programs, the company said Wednesday. The company and its financial advisors are also “evaluating a comprehensive range of business options” that take into account upcoming study readouts for drugs in testing for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and transthyretin amyloidosis cardiomopathy, as well as expected milestone payments. Prothena now expects to end the year with about $298 million in cash. The company had 163 employees at the end of 2024. — Ben Fidler
An experimental dual-acting drug from Zealand Pharma helped people with obesity lose 12% of their body weight over 28 weeks in a Phase 1 trial, the company said Wednesday. People who received once-weekly shots of dapiglutide more frequently experienced mostly mild gastrointestinal side effects typical of “incretin” drugs like it. Two study participants dropped out of the trial because of side effects. Zealand’s drug targets GLP-1, like the marketed obesity medicines Wegovy and Zepbound, and a related hormone called GLP-2. Zealand believes impacting GLP-2 as well can help treat inflammation-related complications of obesity. — Jonathan Gardner
A late-stage clinical trial evaluating Biogen’s Skyclarys in children between the ages of 2 and 16 has officially begun. Biogen paid around $7.3 billion a couple of years ago to acquire Skyclarys, which at the time had just been approved in the U.S. for people aged 16 and up who have a rare condition that impairs the nerves and heart. The company is now trying to broaden that label to include more kids with this condition, known as Friedreich’s ataxia. The freshly initiated “BRAVE” study aims to enroll roughly 250 participants. It will focus on safety, effectiveness, and whether the drug is any better than a placebo at slowing disease progression. — Jacob Bell
The Food and Drug Administration has approved Regeneron and Sanofi’s autoimmune drug Dupixent to treat bullous pemphigoid, a skin condition that primarily affects older people and causes itchy and painful blisters, rashes and lesions, the companies said Friday. The approval, the eighth for Dupixent, was based on a 106-enrollee clinical trial that added the shot to standard of care steroid treatment. Of the people who got Dupixent injections plus standard therapy, 18% experienced sustained disease remission after 36 weeks, compared with 6% of people who got a placebo plus steroids. Dupixent treatment was also associated with reduced steroid use. — Jonathan Gardner
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