Scancell announced on Friday it was suspending a clinical trial for its experimental skin cancer immunotherapy candidate, SCIB1.
The British biotech’s statement explained that this decision was made due to a storage issue because the batch being used in the Phase 1/2 trial had expired.
Scancell initiated this trial in 2010 to test the drug’s capabilities against melanoma in 35 patients, according to FierceBiotech. This trial was predicted to last an estimated six months, but encouraging results caused the study to last for six years, which resulted in the drug supply to being stored for longer than its shelf-life allows.
Chief Investigator for the SCIB1-001 clinical trial and Professor of Clinical Oncology at the University of Nottingham Professor Poulam Patel said in a statement, “Results from the SCIB-001 trial to date have been very encouraging and SCIB1 clearly warrants further investigation as a potential treatment for melanoma.
“However as patient safety is our primary concern, the deterioration of stored clinical trial material from the original specification necessarily means that dosing of SCIB1 must be suspended until new drug product becomes available,” added Patel.
Only eight out of the 35 patients were impacted by this suspension, but Scancell will work with a specialist manufacturer to make another batch of the drug, which could take 9 to 12 months.
The market didn’t respond well to this news because Scancell’s stock sank 27 percent to a six month low.
That decline was the worst day for the company in nearly three years, reported Reuters
Filed Under: Drug Discovery
