#ASH17: Late break­er from Ab­b­Vie, Roche high­lights a block­buster break­out op­por­tu­ni­ty for Ven­clex­ta in CLL

When Ab­b­Vie $AB­BV and Roche $RHH­BY won ap­proval for Ven­clex­ta (vene­to­clax) back in the spring of 2016 as a new treat­ment for chron­ic lym­pho­cyt­ic leukemia, the phar­ma gi­ants had some big rev­enue num­bers in mind. And with some new da­ta that’s com­ing out at ASH in a cou­ple of weeks, they may well be on their way to achiev­ing that.

In a late break­er ab­stract post­ed on Tues­day, re­searchers broke down the num­bers from the MU­RA­NO study on a com­bi­na­tion of Ven­clex­ta — which tar­gets B-cell lym­phoma 2 (BCL-2) pro­tein — and Rit­ux­an against a pa­tient group get­ting Rit­ux­an and Tre­an­da. They high­light­ed a trend in their fa­vor on pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival, which isn’t com­plete, with a 93.3% over­all re­sponse rate and an im­pres­sive 26.8% com­plete re­sponse rate — no vis­i­ble sign of the dis­ease — in the Ven­clex­ta arm com­pared to on­ly 8.2% in the con­trol arm. The ORR in the con­trol arm was 67.7%.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER