Takeda’s Pevonedistat Falters in Phase 3 Cancer Study

Takeda Pharmaceutical said that its investigational cancer drug pevonedistat did not meet the primary endpoint of event-free survival in a phase 3 clinical trial.

The trial of the potential blockbuster drug was designed to evaluate a combination of pevonedistat and Celgene’s chemotherapy drug azacitidine as a first-line treatment for patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a rare form of bone marrow cancer, or chronic myelomonocytic leukemia or low-blast acute myeloid leukemia.

Pevonedistat is an enzyme inhibitor that leads to cancer cell death. Last year, the FDA granted it Breakthrough Therapy designation for patients with higher risk MDS.