AstraZeneca PLC 's unexpected announcement on February 18 that AZD 3582 had failed to meet a primary end-point in one of its Phase II trials for osteo-arthritic pain sent shares in French biotech Nicox SA through the floorboards (see Exhibit 1). Most of the smaller group's market value hung on the compound—a nitric-oxide derivative of naproxen—that it had out-licensed five years earlier [See Deal]. Based on promising Phase I trials, analysts had been predicting $1-2 billion in sales for the compound, granted it passed muster.
But the drug was also a proof-of-principle case for NicOx: the biotech's entire pipeline is based around the concept embraced...