JNJ-95475939

Johnson & Johnson said an experimental eczema medicine didn’t meet its standards for efficacy, ending hopes for a drug that the pharma paid $1.25 billion to get in 2024. The drug, named JNJ-5939 or NM26, “did not meet the high bar we established for advancing our clinical development programs for atopic dermatitis,” J&J said in a statement on Friday. As a result, the drugmaker culled a Phase 2b study of the drug after a planned interim analysis. The so-called DUPLEX-AD trial took place in the US and several countries across Europe, Asia and South America. J&J gained the drug in 2024 via its $1.25 billion purchase of Yellow Jersey Therapeutics, a subsidiary of the Swiss biotech Numab Therapeutics. Kaken bought commercial rights to the drug in Japan, China, South Korea and other Asian regions in 2021. The subcutaneously-delivered drug inhibits both IL-4Rα and IL-31. At the time of the J&J deal, then-Numab CEO David Urech told Endpoints News that the company believed it was the first to bring an IL-4xIL-31 bispecific into human trials. Urech said Numab sold the drug because it needed a “very large and competent big pharma” to develop the asset “extremely fast.” A J&J spokesperson told Endpoints on Friday that they have a “deep pipeline in AD” following recent acquisitions and licensing deals. A few weeks before the Yellow Jersey deal in 2024, J&J paid $850 million to buy Proteologix and its bispecific antibodies for eczema and other conditions. The J&J spokesperson confirmed Friday that the two Proteologix assets are still being developed. In that deal, J&J nabbed an IL-13xTSLP candidate called PX128, and an IL-13xIL-22 asset named PX130.

Johnson & Johnson said Friday it has terminated the Phase IIb DUPLEX-AD trial evaluating JNJ-5939 in patients with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis. The study was halted early after "the results of a planned interim analysis… did not meet the high-bar efficacy we established for advancing our clinical development programmes for atopic dermatitis," J&J said in a statement. The pharma confirmed to FirstWord that JNJ-5939, also known as NM26, is a bispecific directed against IL-4Rα and IL-31. J&J acquired the programme in 2024 through its $1.25-billion buyout of Numab Therapeutics subsidiary Yellow Jersey Therapeutics.David Lee, Johnson & Johnson's global head of immunology, sat down with FirstWord last year to discuss how bispecifics will play a key role in the pharma's immunology strategy, especially in atopic dermatitis, which "is driven by multiple inflammatory pathways and is going to require more than one solution, beyond the monotherapies against single targets available today." He added that "bispecifics hold that promise for us to achieve a higher bar of remission."For more from that interview, see ViewPoints: J&J leaders lay out next steps as pharma embraces 'golden age' of immunology.