Now with ac­tu­al da­ta in hand, Cel­gene touts an ear­ly re­sponse for Crohn’s drug mon­gersen

A month af­ter post­ing an un­der­whelm­ing top-line as­sess­ment of a Phase Ib study of its close­ly watched Crohn’s drug mon­gersen (GED-0301) for Crohn’s dis­ease, Cel­gene post­ed an up­date Sun­day evening that in­clud­ed a pos­i­tive snap­shot of the ac­tu­al da­ta.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors for the study say they were able to track a quick re­sponse to the drug, which Cel­gene paid a whop­ping $710 mil­lion in cash to in-li­cense the drug for Crohn’s. The re­searchers tracked the im­pact of 160 mg dos­es of the drug on en­do­scop­ic re­sponse and clin­i­cal re­mis­sion among 63 pa­tients with ac­tive Crohn’s dis­ease over short pe­ri­ods stretch­ing from 4 to 8 to 12 weeks. And they say the 12-week group has re­spond­ed with the most im­pres­sive re­sults — though some might ob­ject to what qual­i­fies as im­pres­sive at this stage of the game for such an ex­pen­sive ther­a­py.

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