Array Bio ends late-stage study of ovarian cancer drug

Array BioPharma Inc said it was abandoning a late-stage study testing its experimental ovarian cancer drug, after an interim analysis showed the trial would likely fail.

The drugmaker said on Friday that the other studies of binimetinib, its lead drug, were unaffected.

The drug is also being tested for use in patients with different forms of skin cancer, BRAF-mutant melanoma and NRAS-mutant melanoma.

Late-stage data, announced in December, showed that advanced NRAS-mutant melanoma patients treated with binimetinib lived longer without their cancer progressing than those on standard chemotherapy.

The biotechnology company regained the rights to the compound from Novartis AG in March 2015, five years after licensing it to the Swiss drugmaker.

Boulder, Colorado-based Array's stock fell about 4 percent to $2.82 in early trading on Friday. (Reporting by Natalie Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Don Sebastian)