Glioblas­toma con­tin­ues to de­fy about every­thing thrown at it.

Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb put out word Thurs­day morn­ing that its third Phase III as­sault on brain can­cer us­ing its star PD-1 Op­di­vo failed the first end­point, with no sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment in pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival for pa­tients who face grim odds.

Check­Mate-548 ap­pears head­ed for a com­plete col­lapse, though over­all sur­vival is still be­ing stud­ied. Re­searchers had tried to see if the check­point ther­a­py could out­do the stan­dard of care by adding it to the stan­dard — temo­zolo­mide and ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py. 

They al­ready tried — and failed — ear­li­er this year with Check­Mate-498, a Phase III that com­bined Op­di­vo and ra­di­a­tion against temo­zolo­mide. That tri­al failed the mark on OS in May.

Two years ago the com­pa­ny was forced to con­cede de­feat on Check­mate-143, the first use of a PD-1 against glioblas­toma.

Bris­tol-My­ers has had a string of set­backs in the clin­ic with Op­di­vo, though the phar­ma gi­ant still en­joys block­buster rev­enue even as Mer­ck’s Keytru­da con­tin­ues its clin­i­cal blitz that put them on top of the mar­ket.

In this case, though, the Bris­tol-My­ers team joins a long list of fail­ures in fight­ing brain can­cer, which re­mains one of the tough­est tar­gets in on­col­o­gy. Ab­b­Vie had its own bit­ter set­back to re­port in May when their an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate de­patux­izum­ab mafodotin (or de­patux-m; pre­vi­ous­ly known as ABT-414) al­so failed in im­prov­ing sur­vival times for brain can­cer vic­tims.

Sev­er­al years ago Ab­b­Vie showed up at AS­CO with ABT-414 and Ro­va-T to tout their po­ten­tial. Ro­va-T failed com­plete­ly for the R&D team, forc­ing a com­plete write-off of a drug they bought for $5.8 bil­lion up­front.

Robert Prins UCLA

A com­plete fail­ure here won’t ex­tin­guish all hope that a PD-1 could yet play a role in glioblas­toma. Robert Prins at the UCLA Jon­s­son Com­pre­hen­sive Can­cer Cen­ter re­port­ed ev­i­dence ear­li­er this year from a tiny ex­plorato­ry tri­al that a check­point may help pa­tients when used ahead of surgery. But it’s a long shot.

One of the few re­main­ing Phase III stud­ies for glioblas­toma like­ly to read out soon be­longs to Toca­gen $TO­CA which is mak­ing the dif­fi­cult as­sault with To­ca 511/FC. Re­searchers an­nounced sev­er­al months ago that they would con­tin­ue to the fi­nal read­out, dash­ing any hopes for an ear­ly suc­cess. There isn’t much con­fi­dence in this drug, though, with the stock falling from a high north of $15 last fall to just above $3 a share this morn­ing. The mar­ket cap is hold­ing at a mi­cro-lev­el $72 mil­lion.

These fail­ures won’t en­cour­age oth­ers to make a try.

Novartis is calling off a UK-based trial for Leqvio in the primary prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with high cholesterol, the company confirmed on Wednesday.

The Swiss pharma giant made the decision after “careful evaluation,” a spokesperson told Endpoints News via email. The trial, dubbed ORION-17, was planned in partnership with England’s National Health Service (NHS) and was part of the company’s strategy to establish Leqvio as a standard of care in cardiovascular disease management.

89bio said its drug was better than placebo at lessening fibrosis without worsening nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, in two of three dose groups.

The San Francisco biotech said it thinks the Phase IIb data pave the way for a potential Phase III, following in the footsteps of another biotech in its drug class, Akero Therapeutics. To fund a late-stage study, CEO Rohan Palekar told Endpoints News 89bio “would need to raise additional capital,” with the company having about $188 million at the end of last year.