Johnson & Johnson Drops RA Combo Plan After Mid-Stage Trial Failure

Johnson & Johnson has discontinued its rheumatoid arthritis combination therapy, nipocalimab, after a mid-stage trial showed it didn't provide additional benefits over AbbVie's Humira. Despite this, the company plans to continue studying nipocalimab in other areas, with projected peak annual sales of over $5 billion. Humira, once the world's top-selling medicine, faces biosimilar competition in the US.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) has announced the discontinuation of its rheumatoid arthritis combination therapy, nipocalimab, following a mid-stage trial that failed to demonstrate added benefits over existing anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (anti-TNFα) therapies. The decision comes after the Phase 2a DAISY proof-of-concept study, which evaluated nipocalimab in combination with anti-TNFα therapies, did not show significant added benefits over the latter alone [1].

Despite the setback, JNJ continues to project over $5 billion in non-risk-adjusted peak-year operational sales for nipocalimab across other conditions, including various rheumatic diseases [1]. The company had seen nipocalimab as a potential rival to AbbVie's (ABBV) blockbuster drug Humira, which has faced competition from U.S. biosimilars in recent years [1].

Humira's sales potential, previously worth nearly $21 billion in 2021, has been under threat from these competitors [1]. The discontinuation of nipocalimab underscores the challenges pharmaceutical companies face in developing new therapies and highlights the importance of rigorous clinical trials in assessing their efficacy.

While this setback impacts JNJ's plans for nipocalimab in rheumatoid arthritis, the company assures investors that it still expects the drug to be a potential key driver of top-line growth. JNJ believes nipocalimab is one of the ten new Innovative Medicine products that have the potential to deliver peak sales of $5 billion [2].

JNJ is evaluating the drug in an ongoing clinical program across several immunology and neuroscience indications, including late-stage studies for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN), warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia (wAIHA), and Sjogren's disease [2].

References:
[1] https://www.ainvest.com/news/johnson-johnson-halts-nipocalimab-trial-rheumatoid-arthritis-failure-2508/
[2] https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/j-j-ends-imaavy-development-151300733.html