News of clinical hold on AIDS drug sees Idenix Pharma shares plunge 25%

10 February 2011

US biotech firm Idenix Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: IDIX) saw its shares plunge 25% to $3 in extended trading yesterday, after the company revealed of a clinical hold from US regulators on an AIDS drug candidate licensed to UK pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline’s (LSE: GSK) ViiV Healthcare subsidiary.

Idenix said it had been was informed by ViiV that GSK2248761 ('761, formerly IDX899), a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor drug candidate for the treatment of HIV/AIDS licensed by Idenix to GSK, was placed on clinical hold by the US Food and Drug Administration. ViiV has full responsibility for the development of '761, including any regulatory interactions.

Under the collaboration between Idenix and GSK, Idenix has already received $60.5 million in license fees, equity investment and milestone payments to date and is eligible to receive up to $390.0 million in additional milestone payments as well as double-digit tiered royalties on worldwide product sales (The Pharma Letter February 16, 2009).

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