Novartis’ Scemblix gains FDA approval in newly diagnosed CML

Novartis (NOVN: VX) late yesterday revealed that Scemblix (asciminib) was granted accelerated approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for adult patients with newly diagnosed Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (Ph+ CML-CP).

Scemblix is one of the Swiss pharma giant’s key medicines medicines with over $2 billion peak sales potential.

The accelerated approval is based on major molecular response rate (MMR) at week 48 from the ASC4FIRST Phase III trial that compared once daily Scemblix to all other investigator-selected (IS) standard of care (SoC) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) (imatinib, nilotinib, dasatinib, and bosutinib). In the study, Scemblix demonstrated superior MMR rates in both primary endpoints at week 48 vs. IS SoC TKIs and imatinib alone.