Just days af­ter Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb man­aged to sur­prise the an­a­lyst brigade with a Phase III flop for its PD-1 check­point Op­di­vo com­bined with chemo in lung can­cer, Mer­ck’s dom­i­nant team is back with an­oth­er sol­id hit for a par­tic­u­lar­ly tough-to-treat sub­group of breast can­cer pa­tients.

Mer­ck’s Phase III KEYNOTE-522 tri­al con­nect­ed on one of two pri­ma­ry end­points, with their Keytru­da/chemo com­bo elim­i­nat­ing all signs of triple-neg­a­tive breast can­cer — what’s called a patho­log­i­cal com­plete re­sponse — at a sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er rate than chemo alone, re­gard­less of PD-L1 lev­els in the neo-ad­ju­vant set­ting.

That’s an­oth­er first for Mer­ck, which has been steadi­ly rack­ing up new Phase III suc­cess­es for the mar­quee PD-1. In­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­tin­u­ing the tri­al as they wait to see how Keytru­da/chemo did on event-free sur­vival.

As usu­al, we’ll have to wait for a sci­en­tif­ic con­fer­ence to see the hard num­bers. But it’s im­por­tant to note that Mer­ck’s string of suc­cess­es with Keytru­da is al­so a psy­cho­log­i­cal vic­to­ry that can’t be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed. When Bris­tol-My­ers re­leased its lat­est batch of da­ta on Op­di­vo, the com­pa­ny al­so claimed a suc­cess on Part 1a of the Check­mate -227 tri­al, which met the co-pri­ma­ry end­point of OS, “demon­strat­ing a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fit for Op­di­vo plus low-dose Yer­voy (ip­il­i­mum­ab) ver­sus chemother­a­py in pa­tients whose tu­mors ex­press PD-L1 ≥1%.”

An­a­lysts weren’t hav­ing it, though, skep­ti­cal that the drug would beat Keytru­da af­ter see­ing the Keynote-189 da­ta. At this stage of the PD-1 bat­tle, Bris­tol-My­ers is as­sumed to come in be­hind Mer­ck.

The string of suc­cess­es has an­a­lysts com­pet­ing in peak sales fore­casts for Keytru­da. Mizuho’s Mara Gold­stein re­cent­ly not­ed:

News of the fail­ure of BMY’s Check­mate-227 Part 2, OP­DI­VO + chemother­a­py in front­line NSCLC to demon­strate an OS ben­e­fit vs. chemother­a­py alone, fur­ther so­lid­i­fies KEYTRU­DA’s dom­i­nance in this mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar mar­ket op­por­tu­ni­ty, in our view, and is sup­port­ive of our in­vest­ment the­sis. We es­ti­mate that KEYTRU­DA sales will sur­pass $20 bil­lion by 2024, and that KEYTRU­DA will re­main the dom­i­nant check­point in­hibitor in the mar­ket.

Gold­stein added this morn­ing that every­thing is still look­ing rosy for Mer­ck as the com­pa­ny looks to add to its lead in triple neg­a­tive breast can­cer. Plus, the Eu­ro­peans are help­ing with an­oth­er pos­i­tive opin­ion for Mer­ck.

In ad­di­tion to TNBC, MRK al­so an­nounced a pos­i­tive CHMP opin­ion for KEYTRU­DA+IN­LY­TA in 1L RCC based on piv­otal Phase III KEYNOTE-426 da­ta – im­proved OS, PFS, and ORR vs SU­TENT. We think this lends sup­port to our view that KEYTRU­DA should pull far­ther ahead of com­peti­tors as the lead­ing check­point in­hibitor, and is sup­port­ive of our in­vest­ment the­sis.

So­cial im­age: Shut­ter­stock

Hepatitis delta, also known as hepatitis D, is a liver infection caused by the hepatitis delta virus (HDV) that results in the most severe form of human viral hepatitis for which there is no approved therapy.

HDV is a single-stranded, circular RNA virus that requires the envelope protein (HBsAg) of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) for its own assembly. As a result, hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infection occurs only as a co-infection in individuals infected with HBV. However, HDV/HBV co-infections lead to more serious liver disease than HBV infection alone. HDV is associated with faster progression to liver fibrosis (progressing to cirrhosis in about 80% of individuals in 5-10 years), increased risk of liver cancer, and early decompensated cirrhosis and liver failure.
HDV is the most severe form of viral hepatitis with no approved treatment.
Approved nucleos(t)ide treatments for HBV only suppress HBV DNA, do not appreciably impact HBsAg and have no impact on HDV. Investigational agents in development for HBV target multiple new mechanisms. Aspirations are high, but a functional cure for HBV has not been achieved nor is one anticipated in the forseeable future. Without clearance of HBsAg, anti-HBV investigational treatments are not expected to impact the deadly course of HDV infection anytime soon.

More than 3 years after Merck stepped up and paid $1 billion in cold, hard cash to gain the US commercial rights to Bayer’s high-risk heart drug vericiguat in a broad-ranging cardio alliance, the partners say their Phase III study has come through with promising data and a date with regulators.
We don’t have the data, and won’t until they put it out at an upcoming scientific session, but Merck touted the results, saying that their big Phase III VICTORIA study hit the primary endpoint  — with vericiguat combined with available therapies reducing “the risk of the composite endpoint of heart failure hospitalization or cardiovascular death in patients with worsening chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) compared to placebo when given in combination with available heart failure therapies.”
Depending on the hard data, and how it breaks out with the combinations used, this drug could pose a threat to Novartis’ blockbuster drug Entresto, currently at $1.6 billion while analysts expect peak sales to hit $4 billion.
The drug is a soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) stimulator, which Bayer and Merck have had high hopes for. Evidently, so did cardiologists. Cowen’s last analysis set potential sales at $400 million in 2024, but that number could go up significantly now.
Cowen’s Steve Scala noted this morning:
Vericiguat could be a lucrative product for Merck, and one with potentially under-appreciated value. At Cowen’s Therapeutics Conference in September 2019, 80% of specialists anticipated a positive result from VICTORIA whereas only 51% of investors shared this optimism.
Investigators recruited more than 5,000 patients at more than 600 centers in 42 countries for this study — one of the most expensive propositions in R&D. Millions of people in the US suffer from heart failure with reduced ejection fraction when the failing heart fails to contract properly to eject blood into the system. Bayer holds ex-US rights to the drug and also stands to earn cash from the $1.1 billion in milestones Merck agreed on for their collaboration.
Remarkably, the drug was pushed into Phase III despite failing the mid-stage trial — though investigators flagged a success at the high dose of 10 mg. In VICTORIA, researchers started patients at 2.5 mg and then titrated up to 5 and then 10 mg.

Thirteen of the top biotech venture capitalists in the country wrote a letter last week warning lawmakers that if Congress passes a drug pricing bill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put before lawmakers, they won’t be able to invest in biomedical research at their current rate, and patients will suffer.

“If policies such as those included within H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, are passed, our ability to continue to invest in future biomedical innovation will be severely constrained, thus crushing the hopes of millions of patient waiting for the next breakthroughs to treat or cure their cancers, rare genetic diseases, Alzheimer’s, or other serious and life-threatening conditions,” they wrote in a letter addressed to the highest-ranking Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate and acquired by Endpoints News. 

Turns out Dicerna wasn’t done with deals yet after locking in $200 million upfront from Roche for a hepatitis B cocktail two weeks ago.

Novo Nordisk has signed on as the latest partner to its GalXC RNAi platform, handing over $175 million in cash to claim any and all targets of interest in liver-related cardio-metabolic diseases that are not already reserved in previous pacts. The Danish drugmaker — which has signaled its interest to expand considerably beyond its core diabetes franchise into areas like NASH — is also purchasing $50 million worth of Dicerna’s equity at a 25% premium of $21.93 per share. More research payments and milestones extending to the billions are on the line.

→ Gene therapy maker Orchard Therapeutics has been granted an accelerated assessment for OTL-200 by the EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP). The gene therapy — in development in partnership with the San Raffaele-Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget) in Milan, Italy — being used towards the treatment of metachromatic leukodystrophy.

→ Pharmaceutical Product Development has announced that its parent company, PPD, Inc has submitted a draft to the SEC relating to the proposal of an IPO of the parent company’s common stock. Number of shares and price range have not yet been determined.

In the story lawmakers and drug pricing reform advocates have told about the drug industry, there are perhaps few greater villains than Humira and its maker AbbVie.

Between 2012 and 2018, AbbVie upped the drug’s annual after-rebates cost from $19,000 to $38,000 in the US, with sticker prices now over $60,000 per year — increases that led to accusations of price gouging, most recently from Democratic presidential frontrunner Elizabeth Warren.