Alder Regains Rights To Anti-Inflammation Drug Clazakizumab - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Alder BioPharmaceuticals, Inc. (ALDR) has regained the worldwide rights for its anti-inflammation rheumatoid arthritis drug 'clazakizumab' from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY), as the latter has decided to stop development.

Alder will continue the development of clazakizumab, a monoclonal antibody, in autoimmune/inflammatory disease, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

The company now has two drugs in Phase 2 stage - migraine prevention drug ALD403, and clazakizumab, for which Alder hopes to speed up development while it continues to develop ALD403.

In a Phase 2b study of clazakizumab on patients with moderate to severe active RA, the company said the drug, both alone and in combination with methotrexate, achieved the primary endpoint of ACR20 response at 12 weeks, when compared with methotrexate alone.

Alder further said that "strong" data on clazakizumab was recently presented in most recent ACR and EULAR conferences.