CHICAGO -- The use of the investigational weekly subcutaneous injection rusfertide significantly reduced the need for phlebotomy among polycythemia vera patients who had been dependent on it, the VERIFY phase III trial showed.

Rusfertide more than doubled the percentage of patients achieving a clinical response, defined as the absence of phlebotomy eligibility during study weeks 20-32 of the trial (76.9% vs 32.9% with placebo, P <0.001), reported Andrew Kuykendall, MD, of the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.

Rusfertide was also associated with fewer phlebotomies over the 32-week period (mean 0.5 vs 1.8, P <0.0001).

"Put in a more clinically relevant way, 72.8% of patients who received rusfertide did not receive any phlebotomies from weeks to 32, compared with 21.9% of patien

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