Daiichi Sankyo stops work on RA drug biosimilar for Japan

Japanese drug major Daiichi Sankyo (TYO: 4568) today announced that it has decided to discontinue the development of CHS-0214 in Japan, an investigational etanercept biosimilar in rheumatoid arthritis conducted with the US company, Coherus BioSciences.

Etancercept is the active ingredient of US biotech major Amgen’s (Nasdaq: AMGN) Enbrel, sales of which increased 11% to $5.96 billion for full-year 2016. However, in the first quarter of this year, sales decreased 15% to $1.18 billion due to the impact of competition from biosimilars which have been coming to the market.

The primary endpoint, evaluating the disease activity of rheumatoid arthritis after the administration of CHS-0214, met the criteria of equivalence as defined in advance in CHS-0214 and reference product groups, achieving the intended purpose.