Shares of Aliso Viejo-based drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals fell Monday after it said one of its drug candidates didn’t meet a goal in a mid-stage clinical trial.
Valeant shares closed down nearly 9% with a market value of $2 billion on Monday.
Valeant said that a clinical trial showed that its retigabine drug candidate wasn’t as effective as expected in treating post-shingles pain. Valeant, in a release, called the trial results “inconclusive” and said that the design and the short duration of the trial,10 weeks,could have been to blame.
Valeant is working on developing retigabine with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline PLC.
Valeant, which got retigabine in 2005 through a $280 million buy of San Diego’s Xcel Pharmaceuticals Inc., said its plan to seek Food and Drug Administration approval for retigabine to treat epilepsy wouldn’t be affected by the shingles trial results.
