Fol­low­ing its lat­est set­back, Achillion posts some en­cour­ag­ing PoC da­ta for lead drug

Five months af­ter tak­ing a hit on its de­ci­sion to shelve a mid-stage pro­gram for their lead ther­a­py as a monother­a­py for parox­ys­mal noc­tur­nal he­mo­glo­bin­uria, Achillion $ACHN is back with more en­cour­ag­ing proof-of-con­cept da­ta for the drug as a ther­a­py for the ane­mia that can be­set pa­tients tak­ing the in­dus­try stan­dard drug Soliris.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors say they tracked a sharp drop in the need for trans­fu­sions among Soliris pa­tients suf­fer­ing from ane­mia. The group need­ed just 1 trans­fu­sion with 2 units of blood dur­ing the 24-week study pe­ri­od, com­pared to the 34 trans­fu­sions and 58 units need­ed in the 24 weeks be­fore they be­gan treat­ment with the add-on ther­a­py. They al­so not­ed in­creas­es in mean he­mo­glo­bin of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2 g/dL at week 4 (n=11).

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