AbbVie’s phase 3 wins for Humira successor Skyrizi

Pharma News: AbbVie is in a race against time as patent expiry of its Humira inflammatory diseases blockbuster draws near in 2023.

The company’s follow-up drug Skyrizi (risankizumab) is important to AbbVie’s strategy to negotiate the $20 billion patent cliff from Humira, which has already seen sales decline outside of the US where it has already lost protection against less expensive competitors.

In AbbVie’s latest announcements, Skyrizi demonstrated significant improvements in clinical remission and endoscopic response in two Phase 3 Crohn’s Disease induction studies, ADVANCE and MOTIVATE. The ADVANCE study enrolled patients who had an inadequate response or were intolerant to conventional and/or biologic therapy. The MOTIVATE study evaluated patients who had responded inadequately or were intolerant to biologic therapy.

Additionally, Skyrizi’s Phase 3 study results from the KEEPsAKE-1 and KEEPsAKE-2 clinical trials demonstrated improvements in disease activity across joint and skin symptoms among psoriatic arthritis patients paving the way for a launch in additional indications.

With Skyrizi, AbbVie hopes to cover many of the indications where Humira has become standard therapy.

At the 39th Annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference on 12 January 2021, AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez indicated that the company expects global sales of more than $7B for Skyrizi by 2025.

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