Drug de­vel­op­ers face in­creas­ing­ly risky tightrope walk be­tween top-line re­sults and hard da­ta

Even the biggest phar­ma com­pa­nies can hype the re­sults of a big drug study, giv­en the cu­ri­ous dance-of-the-sev­en-veils chore­og­ra­phy pro­vid­ed to late-stage da­ta. And the Wall Street Jour­nal is of­fer­ing up an ex­am­ple to un­der­score just how per­ilous this dance can be for all play­ers.

Case in point: Roche and Per­je­ta. The Swiss phar­ma gi­ant first of­fered a top-line glimpse of its pos­i­tive re­sults for the APHIN­I­TY study in­volv­ing Per­je­ta, but had to deal with some bit­ter re­ac­tions when an­a­lysts got a chance to ex­am­ine the mar­gin­al ben­e­fit that has been pro­vid­ed.

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