Lexicon shares up on good diabetes drug trial 

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s share price soared Wednesday following news of a successful second trial for its diabetes treatment drug candidate.

Shares of Lexicon (NASDAQ: LXRX) were up as high as $2.87 in premarket trading before closing at $2.55.

The Woodlands biopharmaceutical company was studying the performance of its LX4211 drug in 36 patients with type 2 diabetes. The oral drug candidate was developed to lower the accumulation of glucose in the body.

“Rapid improvement in multiple parameters of diabetes, meaningful weight loss, a favorable safety profile and the fact that LX4211-treated patients exhibited improvements in clinically-important metabolic and cardiovascular parameters within four weeks on a single agent is remarkable,” Dr. Philip Brown, senior vice president of clinical development at Lexicon, said in a statement.