Bristol-Myers Squibb Reveals Fresh Rheumatoid Arthritis Research and Real-World Data at European Congress of Rheumatology

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

revealed Wednesday that it would present fresh data providing insights into the field of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR 2016) held June 8-11 in London. Bristol-Myers said that among the studies that would be presented are findings from the first U.S. observational study exploring patients' response to treatment based on their baseline status for two biomarkers of poor prognosis, anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP, also known as ACPA) and rheumatoid factor (RF). The company said that both anti-CCP and RF were biomarkers of poor prognosis that may be connected with a number of severe disease progression and joint damage. It added that this new study and its results would be featured in an Annual Congress of Rheumatology and in an oral presentation on June 9. Bristol Myers' Head of Specialty Development, Douglas Manion, commented, "As a leader in the field of immunoscience, Bristol-Myers Squibb is dedicated to the research of disease biomarkers and finding transformative ways that may help reduce the impact of autoimmune diseases like RA." He continued to add, "The real-world data from the Corrona RA registry study showed patients who are seropositive for anti-CCP or RF, and particularly those who are double seropositive, were more likely to have incremental improvements in response to Orencia than if they were negative for these biomarkers as compared to those who initiated TNF-inhibitors. In addition, there was differential response to Orencia but not with TNF-inhibitors in patients who were CCP+ vs. CCP-. These findings and scientific insights underscore our decade-long commitment to ongoing Orencia research." The stock traded 0.5 percent down on Tuesday.