Acadia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ACAD) Faces Remlifanserin Trial Miss as Analysts Cut Price Targets
- Analysts lowered price targets for Acadia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ACAD) after its Phase II RADIANT study for remlifanserin narrowly missed its primary endpoint.
- Acadia Pharmaceuticals’ stock declined sharply after the study failed to reach statistical significance in treating hallucinations and delusions associated with Alzheimer’s disease psychosis.
- Despite the setback, the 60 mg dose of remlifanserin showed encouraging secondary results, leading Acadia Pharmaceuticals to continue its Phase III program using the 60 mg dose while dropping the 30 mg dose.
Acadia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ACAD) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on treatments for central nervous system disorders. Its portfolio includes remlifanserin for Alzheimer’s disease psychosis and DAYBUE for Rett syndrome. The company operates in a challenging neurological treatment market where many conditions still have limited approved therapies.
Following the RADIANT results, several analysts revised their views on Acadia Pharmaceuticals. Citi lowered its price target to $33.00 from $40.00, while Citizens cut its target to $33.00 from $36.00. With the stock recently trading near $21.00, a $33.00 target still implies meaningful potential upside, although the trial miss added uncertainty to the remlifanserin outlook.
The price target revisions followed Acadia Pharmaceuticals’ Phase II RADIANT data for remlifanserin. The study evaluated the drug in patients with hallucinations and delusions associated with Alzheimer’s disease psychosis. The 60 mg dose narrowly missed the primary endpoint, with a p-value of 0.0603, just above the standard 0.05 threshold for statistical significance.
Despite missing the primary endpoint, the study showed some encouraging signs. The 60 mg dose produced greater improvement than placebo on the primary measure and achieved nominal significance on a key secondary measure of overall disease severity. The drug also showed a favorable safety and tolerability profile.
In response to the mixed results, Acadia Pharmaceuticals plans to continue its ongoing Phase III studies of remlifanserin but will remove the 30 mg dose, which showed limited benefit. The company will focus on the 60 mg dose, which showed the stronger efficacy signal and remains the main path forward for the program.
