Take­da slammed with sur­prise PhI­II fail­ure on 'break­through' blood can­cer drug, im­plod­ing launch plans

One of Take­da’s “break­through” drugs has hit a snag.

In the Phase III PAN­THER study, pevonedi­s­tat — which works by in­hibit­ing the NEDD8-ac­ti­vat­ing en­zyme — failed the pri­ma­ry end­point of event-free sur­vival. And it’s prompt­ing an eval­u­a­tion of the en­tire clin­i­cal pro­gram.

Pa­tients were giv­en ei­ther a com­bi­na­tion of pevonedi­s­tat and the chemother­a­py azac­i­ti­dine, or azac­i­ti­dine alone.

The group com­pris­es pa­tients with three dif­fer­ent con­di­tions: high­er-risk myelodys­plas­tic syn­dromes, chron­ic myelomono­cyt­ic leukemia and low-blast acute myeloid leukemia. For those with HR-MDS or CMML, an event was de­fined as death or trans­for­ma­tion to AML. For par­tic­i­pants with AML, mean­while, an event refers to death.

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