Insomnia's multiple faces

Most biotech companies submit regulatory filings for a new product that include one or two Phase III trials to demonstrate efficacy and a smattering of earlier phase trials to show dosing and safety. But Neurocrine Biosciences Inc. is running a clinical program for its NBI-34060 in insomnia that looks more like a big pharma story.

The company is committed to completing eight large Phase III trials of NBI-34060 in a program that is designed to show efficacy in patients with different forms of the disorder by splitting up patients upfront instead of running multiple subgroup analyses...