Health care company Abbott Laboratories (ABT) said Friday that latest data from the open-label extension of the Adalimumab Trial Evaluating Long-Term Efficacy and Safety in ankylosing spondylitis, or ATLAS, study has demonstrated that Humira lessened the signs and symptoms of the disease in 74% of the patients for up to a three-year period.
Humira or adalimumab is the only fully human monoclonal antibody approved for the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis or AS and several other diseases in the U.S. and Europe. The potential drug, resembling antibodies normally found in the human body, works by blocking tumor necrosis factor alpha or TNF-alpha, a protein when excessively produced is the primary cause of inflammation in many immune-mediated diseases.
AS is a type of arthritis that mainly causes inflammation of the spine and the spinal joints in young adults and is more common in men than in women. Advanced AS can lead to new bone formation on the spine causing it to fuse in a fixed position.
The Abbott Park, Illinois-based firm noted that the Phase III clinical study was a randomized, placebo-controlled, double blind trial. The 315 patients chosen for the study had active AS that had inadequately responded to at least one non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug or disease modifying anti-rheumatic drug. During the course of the trial, the patients were administered Humira 40mg subcutaneously or placebo every alternative week for 24 weeks. All patients were then switched to an open-label Humira 40mg every other week dose trial for another 236 weeks. The company noted that the most common adverse symptoms were nasopharyngitis, upper respiratory tract infection, and headache.
In a separate communique, Abbott revealed data from a seven-year ATLAS open-label extension study on 1,469 patients with rheumatoid arthritis or RA. The firm noted that Humira in combination with methotrexate has resulted in a clinical cutback among long-standing RA patients, and also the percentage continued to increase after two or more years of continuous treatment with the combo therapy.
ABT closed Thursday's regular trading at $53.93, up $0.43, or 0.80%, on a volume of 4.23 million shares.
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