Sanofi is ending a Phase 2 clinical trial that’s testing a drug from Denali for multiple sclerosis, putting a stop to the development plan.
Denali said in an SEC filing Thursday that Sanofi notified the company that the drug, oditrasertib, did not meet primary or key secondary endpoints in the study. The drug looked to block RIPK1, a signaling protein that when overstimulated can drive neuroinflammation and cell death, root causes of diseases like multiple sclerosis.
A Sanofi spokesperson said the company has no other planned studies.
The new data are the latest in a string of disappointing readouts since the collaboration got off the ground. Sanofi paid Denali $125 million upfront back in 2018 with more than $1 billion in potential milestone payments, a huge bet on the RIPK1 target that oditrasertib was aimed at.
In February, oditrasertib failed a Phase 2 ALS study, after failing to improve patient symptoms as measured by the ALS Functional Rating Scale. Another drug that headlined the 2018 deal, DNL747, was fully halted in 2020 after the companies got a peek at Phase 1b data in patients with Alzheimer’s and ALS.
A third asset, DNL758, is still in the middle of a Sanofi-run Phase 2 study for patients with ulcerative colitis. But the company discontinued an earlier study in October 2023 after the drug was found to not be effective in patients with cutaneous lupus erythematosus.
Despite the pared-back collaboration, Denali entered the third quarter with $1.35 billion in cash, equivalents and marketable securities as of the end of June. That funding will help pay for advancing the company’s mid- to late-stage pipeline, including a potential treatment for Hunter syndrome that Denali is teeing up for an accelerated approval application.
The company said last month that it had a successful meeting with the FDA about a surrogate endpoint and plans to submit the application in early 2025.