Imbruvica achieves four times better PFS than temsirolimus in MCL

Janssen, the pharma arm of US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), has presented three-year follow-up data from the Phase III RAY study in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

These results showed that patients treated with Imbruvica (ibrutinib) at first relapse after one prior line of therapy achieved a median progression-free survival (PFS) of more than two years, four times longer than treatment with temsirolimus, a drug marketed by US pharma giant Pfizer (NYSE: MRK) under the name Torisel.

In the overall study patient population, which included patients who had received more than one prior line of therapy, median PFS was more than doubled in patients treated with ibrutinib versus temsirolimus. In addition, ibrutinib tended to increase overall survival (OS), with a median OS of 30.3 months versus 23.5 months with temsirolimus.