BeiGene's Brukinsa poised to lead CLL market

A rosy future is predicted for Sino-American biotech BeiGene (HKEX: 06160) oral Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor (BTKi) Brukinsa (zanubrutinib), which recently gained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic leukemia (SLL).

Brukinsa has gained approval after outperforming AbbVie’s (NYSE: ABBV) Imbruvica (ibrutinib), which has been the standard of care in CLL for almost a decade. Brukinsa should largely replace Imbruvica as the preferred regimen and will more often be used as a treatment for patients who’ve relapsed, according to analytics company GlobalData.

In the Phase III ALPINE study, Brukinsa showed superior progression-free survival (hazard ratio [HR]: .65) and a significantly lower incidence of cardiovascular adverse events compared to Imbruvica.