Intec Enters Phase III With Long-Lasting Parkinson’s Pill

An Israeli company with a new long-lasting pill for Parkinson’s disease expects to bring it to market by the middle of next year, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Intec Pharma is conducting a late stage trial for its levodopa drug, which opens up like an accordion and remains in the stomach for 8-12 hours, requiring fewer doses a day. Intec recently completed enrolling 462 patients for a Phase III trial for the pill.

The Phase II trial showed a 45 percent reduction in “daily off time,” which gave patients more than two extra hours a day of movement.

“I feel very comfortable that we have an approvable program here. I would like to see as big an effect size as possible, but there is commercial viability at any effect size,” Jeffrey Meckler, Intec’s chief executive, told Reuters after a news conference on Wednesday.

“I hope next year we will be able to monetize value out of the Parkinson’s program, whether that is the sale of the company, sale of the program or a license partnership,” said Meckler, who took over in July 2017.

He said a large number of Parkinson’s companies were interested in the program, but he declined to elaborate.

Assuming a 10 percent market share, Meckler said: “We have a drug that is worth more than $300 million a year.”

Intec’s strategy is to take existing drugs and insert them into its delivery platform, in which medicine is folded up in a film with layers that opens like an accordion.

Intec is working on trying to adapt its platform for an undisclosed drug from Novartis and a decision is expected on its viability in early 2019, said Meckler.

Caption

Jeffrey Meckler, chief executive of Israel’s Intec Pharma holds up their long-lasting pill to treat Parkinson’s disease, Wednesday. (Reuters/Steven Scheer)