Roche de­clares a PhI­II fail­ure for Covid-19 as the IL-6 re­pur­pos­ing the­o­ry bites the dust

An­oth­er big IL-6 drug has failed to move the nee­dle for Covid-19 pa­tients, leav­ing that par­tic­u­lar field of re­pur­posed drug R&D on the ropes for the pan­dem­ic.

This morn­ing it was Roche’s turn to out­line a Phase III fail­ure for Actem­ra, adding com­pelling da­ta that have now all but ex­tin­guished the the­o­ry that an IL-6 drug could sig­nif­i­cant­ly help the most se­vere­ly af­flict­ed pa­tients. That comes just weeks af­ter Re­gen­eron and Sanofi hit the red light on their tri­al for Kevzara af­ter get­ting back-to-back read­outs that made Roche’s tri­al a long shot at best.

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