Intercept Pharma is crashing
Shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals fell more than 13% pre-market after the company reported mixed results of a drug trial.
In a statement Wednesday, Intercept announced results of a Phase 2 trial of obeticholic acid (OCA), its treatment for adults in Japan with liver inflammation (or, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH).
Basically, the treatment reached the desired results for some patients, but not so much for others.
Here's the portion of the statement that had the results: "Dose-dependent trends not reaching statistical significance were also observed for several other pre-specified histologic endpoints, including the proportion of patients with steatosis and inflammation improvement, ballooning resolution and NASH resolution. No difference was seen in fibrosis improvement in the OCA groups compared to placebo."
The company said the study was the first of its kind in Japan.
CEO Mark Pruzanski said in the statement, "This study provides the first data on safety, efficacy and dose effects for OCA [obeticholic acid], in Japanese NASH patients and we look forward to continuing to work with our partner Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma to understand the results further."
Shares are up 7% year-to-date and down about 29% over the past 12 months.
