AbbVie’s $10.1 billion purchase of ImmunoGen and accompanying antibody-drug conjugate Elahere is already paying off, with the drug scoring a new mid-stage victory.
The Chicago-area pharma said Wednesday that Elahere reached the primary endpoint in a single-arm Phase 2 study, recording a 51.9% objective response rate as a monotherapy in pretreated patients with FR-alpha high platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer. The median duration of response was 8.25 months.
The safety profile was consistent with prior studies, AbbVie said, with no new concerns arising. But specific adverse event rates were not included. More data are set to be released at an upcoming medical conference. AbbVie said the study was designed to rule out an objective response rate of 28% or lower, the known efficacy of chemotherapy for patients with platinum-sensitive disease.
The trial included patients with folate receptor-alpha high ovarian cancer with at least two prior platinum-containing treatments or who had a documented platinum allergy. AbbVie says there’s currently no standard of care for this group of patients, especially if they’ve already been treated with a PARP inhibitor.
The data offer further justification for AbbVie’s acquisition of Elahere developer ImmunoGen back in November 2023. The drug is already approved to treat select patients with epithelial, ovarian, fallopian or peritoneal cancer. AbbVie had been keeping it’s ear to the ground for ADC opportunities around the time of the deal, with CEO Rick Gonzalez conceding in late October that the company was aware of a potential ADC pact with Daiichi Sankyo that Merck ultimately pounced on.
Treating platinum-sensitive patients is a more ambitious aspiration, with the median survival for patients with that ovarian cancer roughly twice as long as those who are platinum-resistant. Elahere won accelerated approval to treat platinum-resistant, FRα-positive ovarian cancer back in November 2022, with successful confirmatory trial data posted about six months later.
Elahere brought in $210 million in revenue through the first nine months of 2023, and $64 million in partial global sales in the first quarter of 2024. The gap in sales data is due to the acquisition process, with the deal formally closing in the middle of February.
Looming large for Elahere is a Phase 3 study testing the med as part of a combo maintenance therapy with Avastin in platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer patients. The open-label study is testing the 1-2 punch against Avastin alone, looking to enroll some 418 patients. That trial was not listed among AbbVie’s expected Phase 3 readouts for either 2024 or 2025, according to a February pipeline update.
Editor’s note: Story updated to note that Rick Gonzalez is still AbbVie’s CEO. He remains in the role until July 1.