Faron Pharmaceuticals Ltd (LON:FARN) has made some important observations while assessing the data from its unsuccessful phase III trial of Traumakine for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
It has discovered that a sub-group of patients with higher levels of certain bio-markers (CD73 serum and MxA activation) showed a reduced mortality rate and increased ventilator-free days.
The results from this smaller cohort of 48 people mirrored those seen in the company's positive phase II study.
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But, as chief exeutive Dr Markku Jalkanen pointed out, while the feedback was encouraging it still did not explain many of the other results observed from the pivotal clinical assessment of the treatment.
Faron's team is still trying to understand why Traumakine activity was variable in the INTEREST trial compared to previous studies and why the mortality was so low in the group receiving the dummy placebo drug.
"This analysis will continue and we will keep our shareholders and the market informed with progress in due course," Jalkanen said.