Mor­phoSys march­es ahead with plans to file myelofi­bro­sis drug de­spite mixed PhI­II re­sults

Mor­phoSys is de­clar­ing suc­cess on a Phase III study in­volv­ing the key can­cer drug from its $1.7 bil­lion buy­out of Con­stel­la­tion, but a sec­ondary end­point miss ap­pears to be caus­ing con­cern.

The MAN­I­FEST-2 tri­al test­ed Mor­phoSys’ BET in­hibitor, pelabre­sib, in com­bi­na­tion with In­cyte’s rux­oli­tinib (sold, among oth­er names, as Jakafi), as a treat­ment for a rare blood can­cer called myelofi­bro­sis. The com­bo met the pri­ma­ry end­point, demon­strat­ing a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment in the pro­por­tion of pa­tients achiev­ing at least a 35% re­duc­tion in spleen vol­ume — a met­ric al­so known as SVR35 — at week 24.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER