Tout­ing PhI­II suc­cess for arthri­tis drug Taltz, Eli Lil­ly chas­es ri­val No­var­tis in heat­ed im­munol­o­gy race

Aim­ing for a new in­di­ca­tion to ex­pand the use — and sales — of its pso­ri­at­ic arthri­tis drug Taltz, Eli Lil­ly is spot­light­ing pos­i­tive Phase III re­sults Thurs­day for its block­buster hope­ful against an­oth­er type of arthri­tis: anky­los­ing spondyli­tis.

This form of spinal and large joint arthri­tis starts af­fect­ing pa­tients be­fore they turn 30 years old, caus­ing in­flam­ma­to­ry back pain, stiff­ness, and im­paired mo­bil­i­ty. Eli Lil­ly test­ed its drug along­side place­bo in 300 pa­tients with AS who didn’t re­spond well to one or two TNF in­hibitors, which are of­ten used to treat in­flam­ma­tion.

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