Wave's ALS-dementia drug crashes out after early-phase flop, dealing further blow to target

Wave Life Sciences’ antisense oligonucleotide WVE-004 has come up short in a phase 1/2 trial. A year after Biogen and Ionis Pharmaceuticals killed off a similar asset, the biotech is waving goodbye to WVE-004 after getting a look at early-phase clinical trial data in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).