Roche torch­es a moun­tain of biobucks, sweep­ing out a ros­ter of drugs in the lat­est pipeline cleanup

While Roche $RHH­BY post­ed its Q3 up­date on the num­bers, high­light­ing the im­por­tance of its new block­busters in re­plac­ing some ag­ing fran­chis­es, the R&D group used the oc­ca­sion to un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly sweep out a ros­ter of losers from the pipeline.

At the top of the list, Roche is drop­ping a Phase III pro­gram for Actem­ra as a treat­ment for sys­temic scle­ro­sis. The move comes af­ter re­searchers con­clud­ed last fall that the drug “is as­so­ci­at­ed with ben­e­fits for skin fi­bro­sis, lung fi­bro­sis and phys­i­cal func­tion in pa­tients with SSc but in­creased the risk for se­ri­ous in­fec­tions.”

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