* Drug to treat cocaine addiction fails in mid-stage trial
* Says has enough cash to continue ops till 2010 end
* Shares touch a life-time low of 63 cents
(Adds analyst comments, share movement)
May 29 (Reuters) - Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners Inc (CPRX.O) said its lead drug candidate to treat cocaine addiction failed to meet its main goal in a mid-stage trial, sending shares down as much as 70 percent to a life-time low.
The failure of the trial is "a significant setback for Catalyst, which is heavily dependent on this single product candidate," Hapoalim Securities analyst Raghuram Selvaraju said and downgraded the stock to "market underperform".
The company, which reaffirmed that it had enough cash to continue operations till the end of 2010, said the drug CPP-109 could not show that a significantly larger proportion of subjects treated by it were cocaine-free during the last two weeks of the treatment period, compared with a dummy drug.
The company said it would determine the next steps regarding the development of the drug based on the complete analyses of the clinical trial data.
Catalyst expects to complete the analyses during the third quarter after fully unblinding the trial data.
In March, Catalyst said it had halted enrollment of new subjects in an ongoing mid-stage trial testing CPP-109 for the treatment of methamphetamine addiction in order to extend its cash resources into 2010.
The company had decided to instead convert that trial to a smaller proof-of-concept study.
"We have sufficient cash to complete the analysis of the results from our cocaine trial, to complete our methamphetamine proof-of-concept study and to continue our operations through the end of 2010 without additional funding," Chief Executive Patrick McEnany said in a statement.
Shares of the company were trading down 55 percent at 94 cents in early morning trade. It touched a life-time low of 63 cents early in the session.
