Cyclacel unveils a flop in leukemia 2 years after a call on futility, but still won’t give up
Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals $CYCC knew more than two years ago that its Phase III study of sapacitabine for newly diagnosed cases of acute myeloid leukemia in the elderly was a bust, unlikely to produce positive data. But with no sign that the drug was doing any harm, investigators carried on treating patients.
And today they proved that the data and safety monitoring board that called the study for futility at the end of 2014 was absolutely right. The drug flopped against a placebo, unable to demonstrate a significant overall survival benefit. But there was a small sliver of sunshine as the drug did post an “improvement” in complete responses. And that was enough for the lead investigator to carry on with the data analysis and go past the top-line results discussed this morning.
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