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 The company's shares were up 15 percent at $8.58 in light premarket
trading.
Patients given 1.8 mg and 1.2 mg doses of the drug, beloranib,
experienced 12.7 and 13.5 percent reduction in body weight,
respectively. Patients given a placebo only lost 3.1 percent of
their weight.
Last month, Zafgen said the drug was also successful in treating
Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), the most common genetic cause of
life-threatening obesity, in a late-stage trial.
The latest results were from trials conducted before the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration asked Zafgen to halt all tests on the drug
in December after a second patient died from an artery blockage in
the lung during a trial.
Zafgen plans to present to the FDA data from both trials and a
proposal for a risk mitigation strategy for beloranib in PWS to
resolve the complete clinical hold.
The company said it was working to better understand the potential
impact of the drug on thrombosis. Both patient deaths associated
with the treatment were related to blood clotting.
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In the latest trial, a total of nine serious adverse events were
identified in eight patients, including pulmonary embolism and deep
vein thrombosis.
Zafgen's shares closed at $7.44 on the Nasdaq on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Amrutha Penumudi in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio
D'Souza and Maju Samuel)
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