In an im­munol­o­gy mar­ket packed with block­buster bi­o­log­ics, Bris­tol My­ers Squibb hopes that its oral drug for milder cas­es could carve out a lu­cra­tive foothold. Now, with its eyes set on bust­ing Am­gen’s Ote­zla, the drug­mak­er is rolling out full da­ta from a pair of late-stage stud­ies that bode well for its can­di­date.

Bris­tol My­ers’ TYK2 in­hibitor deu­cravac­i­tinib sig­nif­i­cant­ly cut pso­ri­a­sis pa­tients’ dis­ease ac­tiv­i­ty and spurred clear­er skin at four months than pa­tients dosed with Am­gen’s Ote­zla or place­bo, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from two Phase III stud­ies pre­sent­ed Fri­day at the vir­tu­al Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Der­ma­tol­ogy meet­ing.

In terms of PASI 75, a mea­sure of dis­ease sever­i­ty, 58.7% and 53.6% of pa­tients on deu­cravac­i­tinib achieved PASI 75 re­sponse re­spec­tive­ly, in the PO­E­T­YK-PSO-1 and PO­E­T­YK-PSO-2 stud­ies. Mean­while, just 12.7% and 9.4% of place­bo pa­tients and 35.1% and 40.2% of pa­tients on Ote­zla achieved the same.

Even more promis­ing for Bris­tol My­ers, deu­cravac­i­tinib main­tained its edge over Ote­zla be­tween 24 and 52 weeks of treat­ment. At the six-month check-in, 69.0% and 59.3% of pa­tients on deu­cravac­i­tinib hit PASI 75 ver­sus 38.1% and 37.8% on Ote­zla. Of those deu­cravac­i­tinib pa­tients who hit the PASI 75 mark at six months, 82.5% and 81.4% main­tained that re­sponse at the one-year check in.

Deu­cravac­i­tinib showed sim­i­lar­ly high­er rates of skin clear­ance than place­bo and Ote­zla with a slight­ly high­er rate of se­vere side ef­fects than Am­gen’s drug.

Bris­tol My­ers is call­ing the re­sults sig­nif­i­cant even though the da­ta didn’t come with p-val­ues. Ei­ther way, it’s a strong show­ing from its drug, a TYK2 in­hibitor Bris­tol My­ers hopes will ush­er in a next gen­er­a­tion of im­munol­o­gy meds.

The drug­mak­er un­corked top-line da­ta from these stud­ies back in Feb­ru­ary, high­light­ing deu­cravac­i­tinib’s im­por­tant role in dri­ving the com­pa­ny’s pipeline suc­cess. At JP Mor­gan in Jan­u­ary, Bris­tol My­ers tout­ed the drug as one of four ma­jor block­buster pro­grams in the pipeline with the po­ten­tial to earn more than $4 bil­lion a year. The oth­er three were mava­camten, ac­quired in the MyoKar­dia buy­out, along with the ane­mia drug Re­blozyl and the can­cer cell ther­a­py fran­chise.

Un­like the bi­o­log­ics that have come to dom­i­nate the mar­ket, Bris­tol My­ers is aim­ing deu­cravac­i­tinib at milder pa­tients who pre­fer a more con­ve­nient oral dose. Re­searchers hope the TYK2 path­way will of­fer a safer al­ter­na­tive than the JAK class, which has been dogged by safe­ty flags since its in­cep­tion. The case in point there is Pfiz­er’s Xel­janz, which has failed to cap­i­tal­ize on its ear­ly promise with a black box warn­ing for throm­bo­sis and se­ri­ous in­fec­tions, among oth­er things.

With his name already behind a rare disease success story in Alexion, Stephen Squinto was looking for a great story to drive him to jump back into the biotech game. He found that in a fledging non-viral gene therapy company, and now he’s got a few backers on board as well.

On Tuesday, Gennao Bio launched with a $40 million Series A co-led by OrbiMed and Logos Capital with participation by Surveyor Capital. The biotech, which is looking to use its cell-penetrating antibody platform to deliver nucleic acid “payloads” during into the nucleus, had to rush for its initial series — and had a name change along the way.

Now that the US is swimming in Covid-19 vaccines and the supply has officially eclipsed the demand, it’s time for America to lead the world and start shipping these excess doses to countries that desperately need them.

Unlike the IP waiver at the World Trade Organization, which Biden now supports and will likely take years to translate into actual shots in arms, the US could easily donate just a tiny fraction of the more than 60 million doses of Pfizer, Moderna and J&J vaccines sitting on American shelves right now.