Acticor Biotech is discontinuing a phase 2/3 study of a blood thinner given alongside heart surgery based on the results of a futility analysis.
The French company had been testing the drug, glenzocimab, as an adjunct to mechanical thrombectomy in patients who have suffered an acute ischemic stroke. More than 100 patients have been enrolled in the study to date, with the futility analysis conducted on data from the first 78 participants.
“In the light of the information provided to the members of the Independent Monitoring Committee (IMC), and in accordance with the futility criteria defined in the protocol, the IMC recommends that the GREEN study be discontinued,” Acticor said in a Friday release.
Glenzocimab, which is Acticor’s sole asset, is an antibody fragment that’s directed against platelet glycoprotein VI (GPVI). The protein is critical for blood clot formation but doesn’t affect the regulation of bleeding, making it an ideal target for safely inhibiting platelet clumps.
Glenzocimab is undergoing or in line for a number of clinical trials in relation to strokes or heart attacks, but this isn’t the first time the drug has come up short. In April, glenzocimab failed to hit the primary endpoint of reducing the risk of severe disability or death in the wake of a stroke across a separate phase 2/3 study.
Early hopes for glenzocimab were that it could cut the risk of uncontrolled bleeding that can be a side effect of widely prescribed blood thinners such as COX-1 inhibitor aspirin and P2Y12 antagonist Plavix. This theory was back up by a small first-in-human study of the drug in healthy volunteers that read out in 2019.
Those hopes continued into January 2024, when a phase 1b/2a study showed a reduction in mortality and brain bleeding among stroke patients who received the drug.
Results from a phase 2b trial in myocardial infarction, a term for a heart attack, are expected at the end of next year.