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Novartis's Big Hopes For Transplant Drug Blown Apart

Iscalimab Not Effective Enough In Preventing Kidney Rejection

 
• By Kevin Grogan

Long touted as one of the drugs to watch in the Swiss giant's pipeline, iscalimab's chances of replacing tacrolimus as the standard of care preventing organ rejection in transplant patients have been dealt a hefty blow after a Phase II trial failure.

transplant
Less than half of donated kidneys last 10 years • Source: Alamy

Novartis AG's efforts to develop a drug that could result in more durable organ transplants have been hobbled by mid-stage data showing that its investigational anti-CD40 targeting monoclonal antibody iscalimab was less effective in preventing kidney rejection than the standard of care.

The Swiss major has decided to discontinue the 418-patient Phase II study called CIRRUS-1 following an interim analysis of data which indicated that iscalimab did not work as well as tacrolimus-based treatment in preventing organ rejection in patients receiving a kidney transplant

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