{"id":463960,"date":"2026-02-12T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463960\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T10:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:00:16","slug":"nektar-continuing-comeback-says-eczema-drugs-effects-hold-up-in-follow-up-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463960\/","title":{"rendered":"Nektar, continuing comeback, says eczema drug\u2019s effects hold up in follow-up study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive<\/a>. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily BioPharma Dive newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

An experimental eczema shot from Nektar Therapeutics helped trial enrollees who\u2019d already benefited from treatment maintain and even deepen their response<\/a> over one year after being switched to a longer-lasting maintenance dose, the company said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The data, if confirmed in additional testing, could give Nektar\u2019s shot a competitive advantage over Regeneron and Sanofi\u2019s Dupixent and Eli Lilly\u2019s Ebglyss by offering deepening effects with less-frequent dosing. But Nektar also faces competition from many others advancing different types of injectables<\/a> and oral medicines<\/a>\u00a0for the condition.<\/p>\n

Nektar is planning a Phase 3 trial with a similar design<\/a> that will allow responders to transition to a maintenance dose while others continue on with the initial regimen. If successful, the company expects to ask the Food and Drug Administration for approval in 2029.<\/p>\n

Nektar shares were worth less than $10 apiece only a few years ago, when efforts to develop a cancer immunotherapy with Bristol Myers Squibb<\/a> fell short. But shares have rebounded considerably since the middle of 2025. And they climbed as much as 48% in morning trading, nudging the valuation of the 36-year-old company over the $1 billion mark as investors gained confidence in the potential of its drug, called rezpegaldesleukin.<\/p>\n

The drug targets IL-2, a protein that stimulates a type of white blood cell that helps keeps erroneous immune responses in check.\u00a0Nektar is testing the approach \u2014 a common strategy against cancer \u2014 in multiple autoimmune conditions, including eczema,\u00a0alopecia areata and Type 1 diabetes.<\/p>\n

The data Nektar announced Tuesday came from the second part of a trial in eczema that was already declared a success<\/a>. In the first stage of that trial, Nektar\u00a0was able to show that a significantly greater share of people who received rezpegaldesleukin\u00a0instead of a placebo achieved certain measures of skin clearance. That measurement was taken after trial enrollees had received different doses of rezpegaldesleukin\u00a0either fortnightly or monthly.<\/p>\n

In the study\u2019s second phase, 167 of the 320 participants who got Nektar\u2019s drug and achieved a specific level of skin clearance \u2014 \u201cEASI50\u201d or greater \u2014 were then given additional treatment at different dose intervals over 36 weeks. Most of those regimens involved less frequent dosing than what patients received at the study\u2019s start.<\/p>\n

Additionally, 23 people in the placebo arm who achieved EASI50 continued getting a placebo. Placebo and drug recipients who didn\u2019t hit that mark were allowed into a \u201crescue arm\u201d of the trial that got rezpegaldesleukin\u00a0treatment.<\/p>\n

Nektar said the majority of people who entered the second stage maintained their response, as measured by the EASI scale, a separate assessment and a measurement of itching. A \u201cmeaningful proportion\u201d of those in the second stage saw an even deeper response \u2014 such as meeting more strict measures of skin clearance than they\u2019d achieved in the initial part of the trial.<\/p>\n

In a note to clients Tuesday, Jefferies analyst Roger Song wrote that the new data \u201cexceeded our expectations\u201d and surpassed benchmarks set by other therapies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[103428,50736,8690,20304,10474,97,216095,243,148363],"class_list":{"0":"post-463960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-bristol-myers-squibb","9":"tag-competitive-advantage","10":"tag-drug-targets","11":"tag-eczema","12":"tag-food-and-drug-administration","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-maintenance-dose","15":"tag-medication","16":"tag-nektar-therapeutics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}