Take­da touts pos­i­tive first-line leukemia re­sults — but is­n't quite ready to re­veal the hard da­ta

Five years af­ter shelling out more than $5 bil­lion for Ari­ad Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and its rare leukemia drug Iclusig, Take­da is set­ting plans in mo­tion for a po­ten­tial la­bel ex­pan­sion in­to the first-line set­ting — but for now, the phar­ma gi­ant is keep­ing its cards close.

Iclusig and re­duced in­ten­si­ty chemother­a­py suc­cess­ful­ly beat out No­var­tis’ Gleevec in treat­ing new­ly di­ag­nosed pa­tients with Philadel­phia chro­mo­some-pos­i­tive acute lym­phoblas­tic leukemia (Ph+ ALL) in the Phase III PhALL­CON tri­al, Take­da an­nounced on Thurs­day.

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