North Chicago, Illinois based multinational biopharmaceutical company AbbVie presented 13 abstracts at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) Annual Meeting held May 21-24, 2016, at San Diego, California.

Abstracts presented addressed treatment developments for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) including adult and pediatric Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis. AbbVie and Boehringer Ingelheim also presented late-breaking data on the L-23p19 blocker risankizumab, formerly known as BI 655066, an investigational anti-IL-23 monoclonal biologic antibody that is the frontrunner biologic from Boehringer Ingelheim’s Immunology research. AbbVie and Boehringer Ingelheim entered into a global collaboration agreement in March 2016 to develop and commercialize risankizumab, currently in Phase 2 development for the treatment of Crohn’s disease, psoriatic arthritis and asthma, and in Phase 3 development as a psoriasis treatment.

Research on AbbVie’s HUMIRA (adalimumab) for the treatment of IBDs, including moderate to severe Crohn’s disease in adult and pediatric patients, was also presented during the meeting, namely seven-year interim results from the ongoing PYRAMID post-marketing surveillance safety registry evaluating HUMIRA’s safety profile in patients with moderate to severe Crohn’s disease, and results of a long-term efficacy and safety analysis of HUMIRA in patients with moderate to severe pediatric Crohn’s disease.

AbbVie notes that HUMIRA is one of the most comprehensively studied biologics available, with more than 19 years of clinical trial experience under its belt (beginning in rheumatoid arthritis), and that the drug is currently being used to treat more than 989,000 patients worldwide, across all indications.

“AbbVie is committed to continued research in gastroenterology in order to make a significant impact on the lives of patients who face the burden inflammatory bowel diseases can have each day,” said Rob Scott, MD , AbbVie’s vice president, development and chief medical officer, in a press release. “As leaders in immunology, we are focused on improving care for people living with these serious and chronic diseases.”

Additional research presented at the meeting reviewed the impact of age on beliefs about medication and medication adherence, and discussed real-world use of steroids in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases.

Abstracts are available here.
http://www.ddw.org/program/online-planner

AbbVie-Sponsored IBD Abstracts included:

• PYRAMID Registry: An Observational Study of Adalimumab in Crohn’s Disease: Results at Year 7
• Long-Term Efficacy and Safety of Adalimumab in Pediatric Patients with Crohn’s Disease
• Evaluation of Adalimumab Treatment Effects on Extraintestinal Manifestations in Patients with Moderate to Severe Crohn’s Disease
• Efficacy and Safety of Adalimumab in Pediatric Patients with Crohn’s Disease Aged 10 Years and Younger: Subanalysis of IMAgINE
• Assessment of IMPACT III Emotional and Social Functioning Domain Scores in Adalimumab-Treated Pediatric Patients with Crohn’s Disease
• Current Trends in the Quality of Care of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases in the United States
• Fecal Calprotectin Improves the Predictive Power of Three Practical Indices for Mucosal Healing Among Patients with Crohn’s Disease: Results from PREDICT
• Impact of Age on Beliefs About and Adherence to Medications in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: Results from the ALIGN study
• Risankizumab (AbbVie and Boehringer Ingelheim-Sponsored) Late-Breaking Phase 2 Study
• Efficacy and Safety of Induction Therapy with the Selective IL-23 Inhibitor Risankizumab in Patients with Moderate-to-Severe Crohn’s Disease: Results of a Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Phase 2 Study

AbbVie was spun off from Abbott Laboratories in 2013. Together with its wholly-owned subsidiary, Pharmacyclics, AbbVie employs more than 28,000 people worldwide and markets medicines in more than 170 countries, and operated research centers at North Chicago, Worcester, Massachusetts, Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Redwood City, California.

The Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world’s 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, Boehringer Ingelheim operates globally with 145 affiliates and a total of roughly 47,500 employees. The focus of the family-owned company, founded in 1885, is researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing new medications of high therapeutic value for human and veterinary medicine.

Sources:
AbbVie
Boehringer Ingelheim
Digestive Disease Week Annual Meeting