BioCentury
ARTICLE | Clinical News

Acadia jumps on Phase III pimavanserin data

November 28, 2012 1:56 AM UTC

Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD) jumped $3.13 (136%) to $5.43 on Tuesday after reporting that once-daily 40 mg oral pimavanserin as an adjunct to stable doses of existing anti-Parkinson's therapy met the primary endpoint in the Phase III ACP-103-020 trial to treat Parkinson's disease psychosis (PDP). Specifically, primavanserin improved antipsychotic efficacy as measured by the mean reduction from baseline to day 43 in scores on the SAPS-PD 9-item scale vs. placebo (5.79 vs. 2.73 points, p=0.001). The SAPS-PD was adapted from the hallucinations and delusions domains of the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS), a 20-item scale that Acadia said was originally developed for evaluating schizophrenia psychosis, which includes more auditory hallucinations compared to PDP, which includes more visual hallucinations. The double-blind, North American trial enrolled 199 patients with PDP.

In 2009, Acadia fell 66% to $2 after it and former partner Biovail Corp. reported data from the Phase III ACP-103-012 trial in PDP patients showing that once-daily pimavanserin missed the primary endpoint of improving antipsychotic efficacy as measured by scores on the SAPS 20-item scale at week six vs. placebo. The companies said the placebo response in the trial was higher than expected. Biovail merged with Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (TSX:VRX; NYSE:VRX) in 2010 (see BioCentury Extra, Sept. 1, 2009). ...