Entyvio beats Humira in head-to-head ulcerative colitis trial

Takeda has unveiled further data from the VARSITY study showing the superiority of the gut-selective biologic Entyvio (vedolizumab) to the anti-tumour necrosis factor-alpha (anti-TNFα) biologic Humira (adalimumab) in achieving clinical remission in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). Results of the trial, published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), show clinical remission rates in patients with moderately to severely active UC of 31.3% for Entyvio and 22.5% for Humira after 52 weeks' treatment. Entyvio achieved higher percentages of clinical remission at week 52 compared to Humira in both anti-TNFα-naïve patients (34.2% versus 24.3%, respectively) and anti-TNFα-experienced patients with UC (20.3% versus 16.0%, respectively). Also, in the secondary endpoints of the study, treatment with Entyvio was linked with significantly higher percentages of mucosal healing at week 52 compared to patients treated with Humira (39.7% versus. 27.7%). However, Takeda's drug was not found to be superior to in the percentage of patients using oral corticosteroids at baseline who discontinued corticosteroids and were in clinical remission at week 52 (12.6% versus 21.8%).