(RTTNews) - Biovail Corp. (BVF: News ,BVF.TO: News ) said Tuesday that it remains committed to developing pimavanserin for Parkinson's disease psychosis or PDP in collaboration with Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ACAD: News ), though the drug posted disappointing top-line results from the first phase III PDP trial. The two companies said they have established a development strategy that they believe will strengthen the PDP program.

The parties also intend to pursue adjunctive therapy with pimavanserin for schizophrenia as a third indication in the collaboration.

Acadia and Biovail have agreed on a development strategy for PDP that involves using the findings from the study together with those from the second, ongoing phase III trial, to arrive at an enhanced study design that may be used in new phase III trials.

Meanwhile, the two companies said they will begin planning for a new phase III PDP trial using a 40 mg dose of pimavanserin. Biovail will be responsible for the cost of this third phase III trial, and Acadia will continue its ongoing open-label safety extension studies in patients with PDP. The study is expected to start in the first half of 2010.

In addition, Biovail intends to pursue adjunctive therapy with pimavanserin for schizophrenia as a third indication in the collaboration. Alzheimer's disease psychosis remains the second indication provided for in the collaboration.
The partners currently plan to focus efforts not only on the PDP and schizophrenia programs, but also are moving forward with planning for an initial study in ADP.

BVF is currently trading at $15.05, up 35 cents or 2.38%. BVF.TO is currently trading at C$15.92, up 26 cents or 1.66%.

ACAD is currently trading at $2.03, up 38 cents or 23.03% on a volume of 4.84 million shares.

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by RTT Staff Writer

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