Histogenics Announces Top-Line Results From Phase 3 Clinical Trial of NeoCart in Patients With Knee Cartilage Damage

Histogenics (Nasdaq:HSGX), a leader in the development of restorative cell therapies that may offer rapid-onset pain relief and restored function, today announced that its Phase 3 clinical trial of NeoCart did not meet the primary endpoint of a statistically significant improvement in pain and function in a dual threshold responder analysis one year after treatment as compared to microfracture.

As quoted in the press release:

In the modified Intent to Treat (mITT) population (which excludes those patients who were randomized but not treated with NeoCart), 74.2% of the NeoCart patients exhibited clinically meaningful improvements in pain and function compared to 62.0% of microfracture patients at one year (p=0.071).  However, in this mITT population, patients treated with NeoCart achieved a statistically significant improvement in pain and function (p=0.018) six months after treatment as compared to patients treated with microfracture.  Both NeoCart and microfracture were well tolerated and exhibited strong safety profiles.

“Based on the totality of the data generated in the Phase 3 clinical trial, we continue to believe in NeoCart’s potential as a treatment for knee cartilage damage.  When we designed our Phase 3 clinical trial in 2009, we set a very high clinical bar for NeoCart and narrowly missed hitting the trial’s primary endpoint with statistical significance by only two microfracture responders out of the 249 patients that participated in the trial.  While the NeoCart treatment group exhibited a response as early as three months after treatment that continued through two years, the microfracture response rate was better than expected, which impacted the statistics.  We are encouraged by the results and believe we have a meaningfully differentiated product that, if approved, can compete effectively and provide physicians and patients with a beneficial treatment option that may grow the market,” said Adam Gridley, President and Chief Executive Officer of Histogenics.

Click here to read the full press release.