In next-gen BTK bat­tle, Ab­b­Vie and J&J tout piv­otal da­ta back­ing Im­bru­vi­ca as a com­bo treat­ment

Last week, As­traZeneca took a swing at J&J and Ab­b­Vie’s first-gen­er­a­tion BTK in­hibitor Im­bru­vi­ca in the blood can­cer chron­ic lym­pho­cyt­ic leukemia with long-term da­ta from a head-to-head tri­al. But the part­ners aren’t go­ing down with­out a fight.

Ab­b­Vie and Janssen un­veiled piv­otal da­ta on Sat­ur­day show­ing that first-line CLL pa­tients who re­ceived Im­bru­vi­ca and Ab­b­Vie’s Roche-part­nered Ven­clex­ta lived longer with­out dis­ease pro­gres­sion than pa­tients on Gazy­va and the chemother­a­py chlo­ram­bu­cil. The Phase III GLOW tri­al en­rolled 211 el­der­ly pa­tients, or those with co­mor­bidi­ties or con­cur­rent ill­ness­es. Over­all, the me­di­an age was 71 years old.

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