An oral treatment from Gilead Sciences eliminated the symptoms experienced by patients with a type of inflammatory bowel disease, mid-stage study results reported Monday that could boost the biotech’s push to develop new drugs for inflammatory and autoimmune conditions.
A 200 milligram daily dose of the Gilead pill, called emvistegrast, taken for 12 weeks resulted in a 23% placebo-adjusted clinical remission rate for patients with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, the Phase 2 study showed. The statistically significant improvement exceeded Wall Street analyst expectations.
“Emvistegrast has the potential to be a best-in-class oral for patients with ulcerative colitis,” Swati Tole, Gilead’s senior vice president overseeing clinical development of its inflammatory disease medicines, told STAT on Friday. “Patients with inflammatory bowel disease, while they have other therapies available, still have persistent symptoms. A majority do not achieve remission, so seeing these data was encouraging for us.”