Sumitomo and Otsuka schizophrenia asset flunks PhIII, companies blame Covid-19 induced placebo effect

Sum­it­o­mo and Ot­su­ka’s schiz­o­phre­nia can­di­date ulotaront failed its Phase III test, with the com­pa­nies say­ing that the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic pushed the place­bo ef­fect to high­er-than-ex­pect­ed lev­els.

Al­though a place­bo ef­fect is gen­er­al­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed to blur psy­chi­atric tri­al re­sults, pre­lim­i­nary da­ta from a pair of Phase III tri­als, DI­A­MOND 1 and 2, sug­gest­ed place­bo may have “masked the ther­a­peu­tic ef­fect” of ulotaront, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­nies.

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