MorphoSys marches ahead with plans to file myelofibrosis drug despite mixed PhIII results

Mor­phoSys is de­clar­ing suc­cess on a Phase III study in­volv­ing the key can­cer drug from its $1.7 bil­lion buy­out of Con­stel­la­tion, but a sec­ondary end­point miss ap­pears to be caus­ing con­cern.

The MAN­I­FEST-2 tri­al test­ed Mor­phoSys’ BET in­hibitor, pelabre­sib, in com­bi­na­tion with In­cyte’s rux­oli­tinib (sold, among oth­er names, as Jakafi), as a treat­ment for a rare blood can­cer called myelofi­bro­sis. The com­bo met the pri­ma­ry end­point, demon­strat­ing a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment in the pro­por­tion of pa­tients achiev­ing at least a 35% re­duc­tion in spleen vol­ume — a met­ric al­so known as SVR35 — at week 24.

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