Abbott Laboratories had a busy Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2019 conference. Among the news it generated was the unveiling of new analyses of the COAPT trial on the cost-effectiveness of Mitraclip vs. guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT) alone in heart failure patients with secondary mitral regurgitation (MR).

Wall Street will have to wait until the American Heart Association (AHA) meeting next month in Philadelphia for full data from Resverlogix Inc.'s phase III BETonMACE trial with apabetalone, but disclosure of the endpoint miss was enough to send investors fleeing.

Shares of Seattle Genetics Inc. (NASDAQ:SGEN) rose 12.4% to $85.40 on news that an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) it is developing with Tokyo-based Astellas Pharma Inc., when combined with Keytruda (pembrolizumab, Merck & Co. Inc.), shrank tumors in the majority of people participating in a phase I first-line bladder cancer study.

SAN FRANCISCO – Abbott Laboratories expects that its self-expanding transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) system Portico will be able to become a top competitive product. A pivotal trial of Portico has found that the implant is noninferior to current FDA-approved TAVR systems that are marketed in the U.S. The results from the 750-patient, randomized trial were presented here last week at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference.

SAN FRANCISCO – As the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) field matures, it is becoming increasingly difficult to develop a new implant that can distinguish itself vs. competitors. The incremental benefits are narrowing rapidly, making it tough to distinguish new iterations from one another using standard, randomized trials.

BARCELONA, Spain – This year's theme at the European Society for Medical Oncology's (ESMO) 2019 annual meeting is "translating science into better patient care."

Aravive Inc.'s chief medical officer, Gail McIntyre, told BioWorld that a "very clever mechanism" designed by researchers at Stanford University helped lead to positive data from the first 12 patients of the ongoing phase Ib part of the phase Ib/II experiment with AVB-500 against notoriously hard-to-beat ovarian cancer.