Amgen hit by major safety blow on osteoporosis drug
pharmafile | May 22, 2017 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing |Â Â Amgen, Romosozumab, UCB SAÂ
Amgen and UCB SA have been delivered a crushing blow in its attempt to have a drug for osteoporosis approved in 2017, with new data from a Phase 3 clinical trial showing a previously unobserved increase in the risk for a cardiovascular serious adverse event.
With Amgen having already applied for approval to the FDA, and the FDA being required to examine any new safety information on a drug, it looks unlikely that the drug will reach the market in 2017. This comes as a big blow as the drug was expected to reach sales of around $800 million by 2023. The drug is also currently being examined for approval in Canada and Japan, with the news also expected to negatively impact the review process in those countries.
The results came from the EVENITY trial of romosozumab, a treatment for reducing the incidence of new vertebral fractures in postmenopausal women. The blow comes even as the results were positive in both primary endpoints and in a secondary endpoint, with a reduction in new vertebral fractures (primary), clinical fractures (primary) and non-vertebral fractures (secondary).
The stumbling block came as the trial picked up an imbalance that found an increased rate of positively adjudicated cardiovascular serious adverse events of 2.5% EVENITY versus 1.9% alendronate at 12 months.
“We are impressed with the statistically significant superior fracture risk reduction of EVENITY over alendronate, a current standard of care in osteoporosis. When we think that patients who have had a fracture are highly likely to suffer another one, the importance of post-fracture care cannot be emphasized enough,” said Iris Loew-Friedrich, UCB’s chief medical officer. “We are working on understanding the observed cardiovascular safety signal and will continue to discuss these results with global regulators and experts in the field.”
The news will come as good news to Radius Health, which has already achieved an FDA approval last month for its own osteoporosis drug, Tymlos.
Ben Hargreaves
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