Targacept (NASDAQ:TRGT) has seen two phase 3 clinical trial failures in the last two months for its depression drug candidate. Now the company has some better news, albeit for a different indication. Drug partner AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) will take on a Targacept Alzheimer’s disease drug candidate for further clinical studies.
AstraZeneca will conduct and fund phase 2 clinical trials of AZD1446, a compound that emerged from the partnership between AstraZeneca and Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based Targacept. The companies signed a 2005 collaboration and licensing agreement to jointly research and develop drug candidates for cognitive disorders. The next AZD1446 clinical trial is expected to be a study of how well the compound works as a treatment when paired with donepezil, the world’s most prescribed Alzheimer’s treatment marketed by Eisai as Aricept. Aricept generates about $2.3 billion in annual sales, though those figures are bound to fall with the introduction of generic versions.
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The Targacept/AstraZeneca collaboration includes another experimental Alzheimer’s disease treatment: AZD3480. The companies have studied the compound in six phase 2 studies covering a range of cognitive disorders that include attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mild cognitive impairment, age-associated memory impairment, cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia as well as Alzheimer’s disease. Targacept last fall started another phase 2 trial to study AZD3480 efficacy as a monotherapy compared with Aricept. A previous Alzheimer’s disease study of AZD3480 over three months was inconclusive. Targacept said that it believes it can get different results from a longer clinical study. This second phase 2b study of AZD3480 will last one year.
Targacept is hoping for better results from the Alzheimer compounds than it has seen so far from its depression treatments. The compound TC-5214 has failed in two of four phase 3 clinical trials so far. The company expects results from the two remaining phase 3 studies in the first half of this year. Depending on the outcome, Targacept could file a New Drug Application for that depression drug candidate in the second half of this year.
