GSK's blood cancer drug meets primary goal in late-stage trial

GSK said on Monday that its blood cancer drug Blenrep h reached a key goal in a late-st trial, potentially providing a boost to British drugmaker's cancer unit after a series of setbacks.

drug, when combined with existing drug bortezomib plus steroid dexamethasone, significantly extended time before disease progressed, or patients died, in those suffering from relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma - third most common of blood cancer which is considered difficult to treat.

Blenrep was pulled from US markets last year, after it failed a separate late-st study designed to show it was better than an existing treatment on market.

In September, EU's drug regulator also recommended against renewing conditional marketing authorisation for Blenrep, in a setback to key oncology unit that GSK has been looking to strengn.

A move to bring drug back to market or expand its us following results of latest study dubbed "DREAMM-7", would be a boost for company.

drug belongs to a promising category of treatments called antibody-drug conjugates, which are engineered antibodies that bind to tumour cells and n release cell-killing chemicals.

A "strong and clinically meaningful overall survival trend was also observed", GSK ded.

Overall survival is defined as proportion of trial patients on drug who were alive compared to those on a placebo. Progression free survival, key goal that study met, refers to period of time that a person lives with disease without it getting worse after treatment.

Blenrep, which was second-largest contributor to GSK's oncology business in 2022, has me about 30 million pounds ($37.38 million) in sales year-to-date.

Shares in FTSE 100 firm were tring up 0.2 per cent in Monday morning tre.