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Amryt boost as epidermolysis bullosa drug rival fails

Amicus Therapeutics pulled EB drug after it failed to meet certain targets in a trial

A child’s hand, showing the blistering caused by Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). The condition causes the skin layers and internal body linings to separate, meaning sufferers blister painfully at the slightest touch. Photograph: Dave Meehan

Thu Sep 14 2017 - 20:40

Irish woundcare group Amryt has become the front-runner in the race to find a treatment for epidermolysis bullosa (EB), known as butterfly disease which causes skin in mainly young patients to blister at the slightest touch.

Rival Amicus Therapeutics, which had been ahead of Amryt, has pulled its drug after it failed to meet certain targets in a Phase III trial.

Amryt, which commenced its trial earlier this year, is expected to report interim data in the first half of 2018.

Goodbody analyst Andrew Young said Amryt’s AP101 drug was a gel that only needs to be applied when dressings are changed every three or four days, as recommended for EB patients.

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Amicus’s water-based cream required patients to change dressings daily and the company indicated that this may have been a factor in its failure to hit targets for wound closure in patients within three months.

Amicus said it had no further plans to invest in further studies or commercialisation of its drug, SD-101. There are currently no approved therapies for EB.

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