On Dec. 5, AbbVie Inc. (ABBV, Financial) announced through PR Newswire the results regarding whether ibrutinib (Imbruvica), a type of chemotherapy drug for the treatment of patients suffering from relapsed / refractory marginal zone lymphoma (MZL), is effective and safe.
Marginal zone lymphoma belongs to the family of slow-growing non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. Extranodal MZLs generally occur outside the lymph nodes and involve the mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue of some organs, such as the stomach, the ocular adnexal (eyelid, orbital tissues), gut, salivary glands, bronchial tubes, skin and thyroid. Nodal marginal zone lymphomas involve the lymph nodes direcltly.
The Phase 2 study’s results were announced in San Diego during the Annual Meeting and Exposition of the 58th American Society of Hematology. The study found that treating these patients only with ibrutinib (Imbruvica) produced a significant response rate in roughly half of them.
The study involved 63 patients affected with marginal zone lymphoma.
The company says that this group of 63 patients “received one or more prior therapies including at least one CD20-directed regimen (chemo-immunotherapy or rituximab monotherapy).”
The researchers observed some shrinkage of the tumor in fifty patients (79%) and a general response rate of 48%. The median time to the inital response was 4.5 months among those treated.
The company says that these findings suggest “BTK is an important growth and survival factor in Marginal Zone Lymphoma (MZL).”
BTK stands for Bruton's tyrosine kinase and is an enzyme that plays an important role in the development of the B cells, which are lymphocytes, a class of white blood cells. Imbruvica is a BTK inhibitor.
Concerning the data collected by the researchers to assess the safety of the treatment, the company says that they did not diverge from those related to “the known safety profile of ibrutinib in B-cell malignancies.”
The most recurrent adverse events (AEs) ranged from grade 3 (severe) to grade 4 (life-threatening) and were observed in 63% of participants. Anaemia, pneumonia and fatigue were the adverse events that recurred the most.
AbbVie is trading at $59.19, down $2.43 (or -3.94%) from the previous close.
AbbVie has a market capitalization of $96.19 billion and approximately 1.63 billion shares outstanding, of which 0.10% are held by insiders and 73.60% are held by institutions. The volume of shares freely traded on the New York Stock Exchange is 1.62 billion.
According to current market prices, AbbVie is trading at 14.87 times its book value per share (mrq) and 11.47 times its EBITDA.
Most analysts suggest to hold the stock and the average target price is $69.95, up 20 cents or 0.29% from yesterday.
NWQ Managers (Trades, Portfolio), Joel Greenblatt (Trades, Portfolio), David Dreman (Trades, Portfolio), Mario Gabelli (Trades, Portfolio) and Ken Fisher (Trades, Portfolio) reduced their positions in AbbVie by 73.90%, 24.43%, 5.52%, 42.78% and 1.35%.
Disclosure: I have no positions in AbbVie.
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