ValiRx shares were tanking on Friday after the life science announced they would discontinue research on a cancer treatment.
ValiRx was undertaking trials on a candidate for the treatment of endometrial, pancreatic and bile duct cancers in conjunction with Hokkaido University.
ValiRx said: “the profile of the product has been found to be unsuitable for further development at this stage and the evaluation will now cease.”
The trial was one of ValiRx’s main operational highlights in their recent half-year report and the outcome will be a blow to the company.
ValiRx shares were down 12% at the time of writing and now trade at the lowest levels since 2020.
Dr Suzy Dilly, CEO of ValiRx commented:
“Although it’s disappointing not to be able to progress this project further, this highlights the importance of our process of evaluating academic projects prior to full in-licensing. In addition to returning the data to Hokkaido, we have made recommendations for further work, and we will be following the scientific progress of project with interest.”