Neumora Therapeutics has reported that will be discontinuing development of navacaprant, a drug to treat major depressive disorder (MDD), based on results from its phase 3 trials.
In the KOASTAL-2 and -3 trials, navacaprant, a kappa opioid receptor (KOR) antagonist, failed to achieve statistical significance on primary and key secondary endpoints. These results follow the KOASTAL-1 trial, which similarly did not find a statistically-significant improvement treating MDD, as measured by MADRS total score compared to a placebo.
Neumora also announced that it will be cutting its workforce by around 35%. The company will initially face restructuring costs of approximately $2 million, but it expects the changes to ultimately result in annualized cost savings of around $10 million. The company will focus its resources on its remaining pipeline: NMRA-511 in Alzheimer’s disease agitation, NMRA-898 in schizophrenia and NMRA-215 in cardiometabolic disease.