Why isn’t Vertex declaring success for its non-opioid pain drug in a late-stage trial?

Nor­mal­ly when a com­pa­ny scores on a pri­ma­ry end­point in a Phase III tri­al, those re­sults are re­leased as soon as pos­si­ble to not on­ly in­form the world, but to cel­e­brate the suc­cess.

Ver­tex’s Phase III tri­al of its drug VX-548 for acute pain af­ter a tum­my tuck or ab­domino­plas­ty com­plet­ed ear­li­er this year. But the com­pa­ny has said noth­ing about whether it hit the pri­ma­ry end­point. Though Ver­tex has said it will wait for the re­sults from two oth­er tri­als — a Phase III af­ter a bunionec­to­my, and a sin­gle-arm tri­al with dif­fer­ent pain con­di­tions — the de­lay is lead­ing to spec­u­la­tion that the first tri­al is a win.

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