AbbVie stopped a phase 3 trial after its Stemcentrx drug flopped

AbbVie revealed on Wednesday that it had halted patient enrollment in a late-stage clinical trial for a small-cell lung cancer drug after poor patient outcomes.Flickr/Ed Uthman

•  AbbVie acquired the buzzy cancer drug Rova-T in a 2016 deal worth up to $10.2 billion.
• But the company just stopped enrolling a late-stage trial at an independent committee’s recommendation because patients had shorter survival results on the drug.
• Wall Street had already been lowering its expectations for Rova-T earlier this year.

AbbVie bought the cancer drug dubbed “Rova-T” in a high-profile, up to $10.2 billion deal two years ago — a deal that is looking worse and worse as this year stretches on.

The drugmaker is also testing Rova-T for other indications, including as a third-line small-cell lung cancer treatment, a first-line small-cell lung cancer treatment, and in neuroendocrine tumors.

Rova-T, also called rovalpituzumab tesirine, was developed to target a protein called DLL3 that is expressed in most small-cell lung cancer patient’s tumors but not in healthy tissue, according to AbbVie.

The company bought Rova-T as the lead product of cancer-drug company Stemcentrx in 2016, highlighting the drug’s potential alongside four other new compounds for diseases like breast cancer, ovarian cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.

The deal was valued at about $5.8 billion in cash and stock, with investors eligible for up to $4 billion more if the company met certain terms. 

Read more: AbbVie spent billions on a buzzy Silicon Valley cancer drug company. Now Wall Street’s calling the deal a ‘dud.’

But AbbVie already said earlier this year that it wouldn’t try for faster-than-usual approval in one of those areas, third-line relapsed/refractory small cell lung cancer.

A data release in June also left Wall Street analysts less-than-impressed, Business Insider previously reported, though company executives said then that they remained encouraged about Rova-T’s potential in small-cell lung cancer and other areas.