Vital Therapies Halts ELAD Development, Explores Options after Phase III Failure

Vital Therapies saw its shares crater 89% this morning after saying it has halted development of its lead candidate, Extracorporeal Liver Assist System (ELAD®) for acute forms of liver failure, which failed a pivotal trial, and will explore strategic options.The announcement followed the extracorporeal human allogeneic cell therapy’s failure in a Phase III trial in patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis. ELAD failed the VTL-308 pivotal study ( NCT02612428 ) by failing to achieve the