July 20th, 2009

Today, the Human Genome Sciences will announce the results from a clinical trial testing Benlysta. This drug has been found to be effective in curing lupus, an autoimmune disease found mostly in women under the age of 40.

The New York Times reports:

A medicine to treat lupus has proved effective in a large clinical trial, which could pave the way for approval of the first new treatment for the disease in more than 40 years. In recent years, many other companies have tried but failed to bring a lupus treatment to market

The success of the trial could lead to a rise in the shares of the drug’s developer, Human Genome Sciences, which will announce the results Monday morning. Almost all Wall Street analysts have been predicting the drug, known as Benlysta, would fail in the trial.

“For the one million people with lupus in the United States, this is nothing short of revolutionary,” said Dr. Daniel J. Wallace, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was a consultant to Human Genome Sciences on the structure of the trial.

To read more about the results from the New York Times, click here.