Merck Serono has . . . has handed back its rights to the program to Milan, Italy-based developer Newron Pharmaceuticals.
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Salfinamide, which is in late-stage development for use as an add-on to levodopa to treat the neurological disorder, is Newron's lead drug.
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The drugmaker plans to cut support of the Phase III program after April 2012, costing the firm €40 million. The company made the decision to shed the program through a review of its pipeline. Merck Serono is still partnering with Newron on a pair of other experimental CNS drugs called pruvanserin and sarizotan.
And the sad truth (my editorial comment):
Merck Serono is among a host of pharma outfits that have chopped programs from their pipelines over the past year amid a number of factors such as limits on R&D spending in certain areas and governments such as Germany's holding new drugs to higher standards before agreeing to pay for them. The development of neuroscience drugs has been hit particularly hard, with companies such as GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) and Sanofi ($SNY) ordering cutbacks in early R&D of CNS drugs.
Source: Fierce Biotech