Bristol-Myers Squibb #News Release:

ALLY-1 Trial Results Show Investigational Daclatasvir-Based Regimen Cures 94% of Post-Liver Transplant Patients with Hepatitis C and Up to 94% of Hepatitis C Patients with Cirrhosis (Child-Pugh Class A or B)

97% of post-transplant patients with HCV genotype 1a achieved cure

91% of post-transplant patients with HCV genotype 3 achieved cure  

No need seen to alter existing transplantation medication regimens

Saturday, April 25, 2015 10:00 am EDT

(PRINCETON, N.J., APRIL 25, 2015) – Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) today announced that primary endpoints were successfully met in ALLY-1, a Phase III clinical trial evaluating a 12-week regimen of daclatasvir and sofosbuvir once-daily with ribavirin for the treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) with either advanced cirrhosis or post-liver transplant recurrence of HCV. The data was presented as a late-breaker at The International Liver Congress™ 2015, the 50^th annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) in Vienna, Austria from April 22-26.

“The results of the ALLY-1 trial point to the potential of this investigational daclatasvir-based regimen in a patient population with high unmet needs despite recent advances in hepatitis C treatment,” said Fred Poordad, M.D., ALLY-1 Lead Investigator and Clinical Professor of Medicine, Chief, Hepatology, University of Texas Health Science Center and VP, Academic and Clinical Affairs Texas Liver Institute. “Transplant patients take a variety of immunosuppressive medications to prevent organ rejection; that complicates the treatment of hepatitis C. In ALLY-1, we saw no drug-drug interactions between transplant and hepatitis C therapies and no need to make dose adjustments to patients’ transplant-related drugs while they received the daclatasvir-based regimen that resulted in high SVR12 rates.”

The study’s primary endpoints were reached, with 95% of post-transplant genotype 1 patients and 82% of genotype 1 patients with advanced cirrhosis achieving SVR12. Among all ALLY-1 patients, 94% of those with post-transplant HCV recurrence and 83% of all participants with advanced cirrhosis achieved cure (sustained virologic response 12 weeks after treatment; SVR12).

The Child-Pugh scoring system is commonly used to assess the severity and prognosis of chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and uses an A through C classification (C being the most advanced) to categorize disease progression. Patients with class C cirrhosis are decompensated, often with later-stage conditions such as ascites (the build-up of fluid in the abdomen), hepatic encephalopathy (confusion or altered level of consciousness due to the liver’s inability to remove toxins from the blood), and abnormal liver function, which can complicate treatment. The ALLY-1 trial included 16 patients with decompensated cirrhosis Child-Pugh class C; nine (56%) achieved SVR12.

Over the course of the study, four advanced cirrhotic patients received a liver transplant during treatment; 3 of 4 extended treatment post-transplant (see study design below), and all 4 achieved SVR12.

In the study, there were no serious adverse events related to study medications throughout the treatment phase. The most common adverse events (≥10%) were headache (15%, 36%), fatigue (18%, 28%), anemia (20%, 19%), diarrhea (8%, 19%), nausea (17%, 6%), and arthralgia (2%, 13%) in the advanced cirrhotic and post-transplant cohorts, respectively. One patient discontinued therapy after 31 days due to headache, but still achieved SVR12. Nine patients in the cirrhosis cohort relapsed post-treatment, and one had detectable HCV RNA at the end of treatment; there were no on-treatment virologic breakthroughs. Three patients (genotypes 1a, 1b, 3) in the post-transplantation cohort relapsed. All 12 patients with relapse are being retreated with daclatasvir and sofosbuvir with ribavirin for 24 weeks. 

 HCV is the leading indication for liver transplantation worldwide. Without treatment, HCV infection of the new liver after transplant is inevitable, and is associated with rapid progression to cirrhosis and death in up to 30% of patients within 5 years. The ALLY-1 study is the third study to report out of the Phase III ALLY program, which evaluates daclatasvir in combination with sofosbuvir in multiple high-unmet need patient populations and is at the center of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s HCV research focus. The ALLY-2 and ALLY-3 studies have previously been presented at the 2015 Conference for Retroviral and Opportunistic Infections and the 2014 American Association for the Study of the Liver’s The Liver Meeting, respectively, and subanalyses from each study with the ribavirin-free regimen of daclatasvir and sofosbuvir were presented as posters during EASL 2015.

Additionally, EASL issued 2015 Hepatitis C treatment guidelines that include a regimen of daclatasvir+sofosbuvir as the first 12-week treatment for patients with genotype-3 virus. The EASL guidelines now list daclatasvir+sofosbuvir regimens as options for treating all HCV genotypes and for use with patients coinfected with HCV/HIV. (Guidelines available here.)

Other Bristol-Myers Squibb presentations at The International Liver Congress included data from compassionate use programs in the EU that add to the real-world clinical evidence informing the use of daclatasvir-based regimens to treat patients with HCV conditions posing high unmet medical needs. 

“The ALLY-1 trial results build off the ALLY-2 and ALLY-3 studies by demonstrating the versatility of the daclatasvir-based regimen to provide HCV cure in multiple patient populations that have been historically hard to manage, such as HCV genotype 3 patients, HIV/HCV coinfected patients, and patients with decompensated cirrhosis,” said Douglas Manion, M.D., Head of Specialty Development, Bristol-Myers Squibb. “Post-liver transplant and cirrhotic patients represent a still-unmet need and continue to present challenges to currently available regimens.”  

About ALLY-1: Study Design

This Phase III open-label clinical trial enrolled treatment-naïve and treatment-experienced patients with HCV infection of any genotype in 2 cohorts: advanced cirrhosis (n=60) and post-liver transplant with HCV recurrence (n=53). All patients received daclatasvir 60 mg plus sofosbuvir 400 mg once-daily with ribavirin initially dosed at 600 mg/d (with potential for adjustment based on hemoglobin levels and creatinine clearance) for 12 weeks. Patients receiving a variety of immunosuppressive agents were permitted. In the cirrhosis cohort, patients transplanted during treatment could receive 12 weeks of extended treatment immediately post-transplant, regardless of treatment duration before transplant. The primary endpoint was the SVR12 rate (defined as HCV RNA <LLOQ (25 IU/mL) at post-treatment week 12) among genotype 1 patients in each cohort.

About Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver and is transmitted through direct contact with infected blood and blood products. Approximately 170 million people worldwide are infected with hepatitis C. Up to 90 percent of those infected with hepatitis C will not spontaneously clear the virus and will become chronically infected. According to the World Health Organization, up to 20 percent of people with chronic hepatitis C will develop cirrhosis; of those, up to 20 percent may progress to liver cancer.

About Bristol-Myers Squibb’s HCV Portfolio

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s research efforts are focused on advancing late-stage compounds to deliver the most value to patients with hepatitis C. At the core of our pipeline is daclatasvir, a NS5A complex inhibitor which continues to be investigated in multiple treatment regimens and in patients with co-morbidities.

Daclatasvir was approved in Europe in August 2014 for use in combination with other medicinal products across genotypes 1, 2, 3 and 4 for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in adults. Beyond Europe, it is approved in Japan, as well as multiple countries in Latin and South America, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Additionally, the U.S. FDA currently is reviewing a New Drug Application (NDA) for the use of daclatasvir and sofosbuvir to treat patients with HCV genotype 3.

About Bristol-Myers Squibb

Bristol-Myers Squibb is a global biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. For more information, please visit http://www.bms.com or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bmsnews.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Forward Looking Statement

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding the research, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including factors that could delay, divert or change any of them, and could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from current expectations. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Among other risks, there can be no guarantee that daclatasvir will receive regulatory approval in the United States, or if approved, that it will become a commercially successful product. Forward-looking statements in this press release should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect Bristol-Myers Squibb's business, particularly those identified in the cautionary factors discussion in Bristol-Myers Squibb's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014, in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and our Current Reports on Form 8-K. Bristol-Myers Squibb undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.