Tavapadon improved motor and daily living complications at week 26. The news comes nearly one month to the day after AbbVie announced the Phase II failure of another key Cerevel asset, emraclidine.
Almost a month after the stunning failure of a Cerevel Therapeutics schizophrenia asset, AbbVie reminded investors that there’s still more potential in the biotech’s pipeline. The pharma announced a Phase III win for Parkinson’s disease therapy tavapadon on Monday, the third such trial featuring the drug to meet its primary endpoints.
In the Phase III TEMPO 2 trial, tavapadon demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in motor and daily living complications at week 26, as measured by the MDS-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale. The D1/D5 partial agonist also met the trial’s secondary endpoint, which was an improvement in the motor aspects of experiences of daily living as compared to placebo.
Primal Kaur, AbbVie’s senior vice president of immunology, neuroscience, eye care and specialty development, said the TEMPO program underscores the potential for the drug. The company will now take the data to regulators to “assess next steps,” Kaur continued, but intends to file an application with the FDA in 2025. Full results will be presented at an upcoming medical meeting.
Prior to TEMPO-2, the TEMPO-1 and TEMPO-3 trials were also successful, improving motor symptoms with or without common Parkinson’s treatment levodopa.
The news comes almost one month to the day after AbbVie announced the shocking Phase II failure of another key Cerevel asset, emraclidine, which had been under development for schizophrenia. The double trial failure sent AbbVie’s shares plummeting and brought into question the Big Pharma’s long-term neuro strategy, which had put emraclidine at the center of expectations.
