Setback for Genmab and AbbVie’s lymphoma drug

Shares of Danish biotech Genmab (Nasdaq: GMAB) fell as much as 5% on Friday, after is released disappointing top-line clinical results for its Epkinly (epcoritamab), which is partnered with US major AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV).

Genmab noted that the Phase III EPCORE DLBCL-1 trail evaluating the T-cell engaging bispecific antibody administered subcutaneously demonstrated an improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) (HR: 0.74 [95% CI 0.60 to 0.92]) in patients treated with epcoritamab monotherapy. Data is being further analyzed, and AbbVie/Genmab will share more data at a future medical meeting.

Additionally, improvements were observed in the complete response rate, duration of response, and time to next treatment among patients treated with epcoritamab monotherapy. EPCORE DLBCL-1 is the first Phase III study to demonstrate an improvement in PFS in patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who were treated with a CD3xCD20 T-cell engaging bispecific monotherapy. The study demonstrated an overall survival (OS) of HR: 0.96 [95% CI 0.77 to 1.20], which did not reach statistical significance.