Daily briefings
Editor’s Briefing: October 12, 2026
In Short. Bristol Myers Squibb reported that a new pill slowed the loss of lung function in a large scarring-lung trial. First Tracks and Merck also reported trial results, one encouraging and one less so.
Bristol’s lung-scarring pill meets its goal at one dose
BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB said on Monday that admilparant met the main goal of ALOFT-IPF, a late-stage (phase 3) trial in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a disease of unknown cause in which the lungs scar and stiffen. The pill blocks LPA1, a receptor on cells that the company says helps drive the scarring. The trial enrolled about 1,255 adults, split equally between two doses and a dummy pill, for at least 52 weeks. At 60mg twice a day the drug improved forced vital capacity, the volume of air a person can blow out after a deep breath, by a statistically significant margin over placebo. At 120mg the decline slowed but the difference did not reach significance. In a smaller phase 2 trial the drug had cut the rate of lung function decline by 62% relative to placebo over 26 weeks. About 1.4m people live with IPF worldwide. The company gave no numbers for the new trial and said discontinuations for side effects were similar to placebo. Contineum Therapeutics, whose lead drug PIPE-791 blocks the same receptor, has not reported news of its own.
A radioactive drug delays tumor growth after an older one fails
Bristol also said that RYZ101 met the main goal at a planned interim look in ACTION-1, a late-stage trial in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, which grow from hormone-making cells in the gut and pancreas. RYZ101 attaches actinium-225, a radioactive metal, to a molecule that seeks out a receptor on the tumor cells. Patients in the trial had already worsened after a lutetium-177 drug of the same kind, and were randomly given RYZ101 or one of several standard treatments. Reviewers who did not know the treatment assignment judged that RYZ101 lengthened the time before tumors grew, a measure called progression-free survival. The release gave no figures and said safety matched what was known.
First Tracks protects the gut lining from gluten in a small trial
First Tracks Biotherapeutics reported the first cohort of a phase 1b trial of ANB033 in celiac disease, in which gluten provokes the immune system to damage the small intestine. The antibody blocks CD122, a receptor that two immune signals share. After three doses, 32 patients (17 on the drug and 15 on placebo) ate 6g of gluten a day for 14 days. The ratio of villus height to crypt depth, a biopsy measure of the intestine’s lining, fell by 0.17 on the drug and 0.66 on placebo. Medicine for gut symptoms was taken by 6% of drug patients and 47% of placebo patients. Immune cells that crowd into the gut lining, another biopsy measure, barely changed on the drug but rose sharply on placebo. There were no serious side effects among 34 people dosed. The company plans a larger trial in 2027.
Merck’s eye drug trails the older standard in full data
Merck presented full one-year results from Brunello at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting over the weekend. The trial tested remigromig, bought with Eyebiotech for $1.3 billion in 2024, against ranibizumab (Lucentis) in diabetic macular edema, a swelling of the retina caused by leaky blood vessels in diabetes. Patients on the two remigromig doses gained 9.1 and 8.7 letters on an eye chart, against 11.8 on ranibizumab. Proliferative diabetic retinopathy, the growth of abnormal new vessels on the retina, affected 6.7% and 6.1% on remigromig and 0.9% on ranibizumab. Treatment was stopped for side effects by 4.9% and 4.5% on remigromig, against 0.9% on ranibizumab. Merck says the drug matched the older treatment, notes that 30-40% of patients are not helped by drugs of ranibizumab’s kind, and is running more analyses. A second trial is under way.