Ab­b­Vie boasts a PhI­II sweep for top pso­ri­a­sis con­tender risankizum­ab, but it has lots of com­pe­ti­tion

Ab­b­Vie paid Boehringer $595 mil­lion up­front to li­cense rights to risankizum­ab in ear­ly 2016, and this morn­ing the com­pa­ny dis­played a late-stage dataset on pso­ri­a­sis ex­plain­ing why they want­ed this drug so bad­ly, stay­ing on track to cre­at­ing a new fran­chise play­er the phar­ma com­pa­ny be­lieves can reg­is­ter $4 bil­lion to $5 bil­lion in peak an­nu­al sales.

In a Phase III dou­ble head­er, re­searchers pit­ted the drug against two key — though fad­ing — last-gen­er­a­tion main­stays in the field, Ste­lara (ustek­inum­ab) and its own mega-drug Hu­mi­ra (adal­i­mum­ab). Their top prospect came through on all scores, out­pac­ing the oth­er two in clear­ing pso­ri­a­sis while the place­bo arm com­par­i­son num­bers bare­ly budged.

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