OSAKA, Japan & CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & NEW YORK--(Business Wire / 뉴스와이어)--Takeda (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) today announced that the German Hodgkin Study Group (GHSG) will present positive results from the Phase 3 HD21 trial evaluating ADCETRIS® (brentuximab vedotin) in combination with chemotherapy as a late-breaking oral presentation at the 60th American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting (LBA7000) and at the 29th European Hematology Association (EHA) Annual Meeting (S225). The four-year analysis presented by the GHSG showed superior progression-free survival (PFS) and improved tolerability for patients compared to a current standard of care regimen used in Europe in this setting.

The HD21 study is a Phase 3, randomized, multi-country, prospective, open-label study, sponsored by the GHSG and supported by Takeda, designed to evaluate ADCETRIS in combination with etoposide, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, dacarbazine and dexamethasone (BrECADD) in comparison to a standard of care treatment - escalated doses of bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisone (eBEACOPP) - in patients with newly diagnosed Stage IIb/III/IV classical Hodgkin lymphoma. At a preplanned three-year analysis, the study met its co-primary endpoints, with the ADCETRIS combination regimen demonstrating significantly improved safety as assessed by treatment-related morbidity (TRMB) and non-inferior PFS.

The study found that the addition of ADCETRIS to this chemotherapy regimen improved the risk-to-benefit profile of the combination treatment, maintaining efficacy with significantly fewer acute and long-lasting treatment-related toxicities than the comparator arm.

“We initiated the HD21 trial with the hope of improving outcomes currently being achieved by a standard of care, as many patients with newly diagnosed disease often experience a high treatment burden,” said Peter Borchmann, MD, PhD, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany, and trial chairman of the HD21 study. “The presented analysis, in which the ADCETRIS regimen demonstrates superior progression-free survival, as well as a tolerable safety profile, reveals the meaningful potential this ADCETRIS + ECADD regimen has to offer these patients.”

The ASCO presentation provides details of a four-year PFS analysis of the HD21 study conducted by GHSG. After 48 months, BrECADD showed superior efficacy to BEACOPP (94.3% PFS for BrECADD and 90.9% PFS for eBEACOPP; hazard ratio [HR]: 0.66 [95% CI:88.7-93.1]; p