Table in mix up was only use of relative data by vendor; Vertex

By Nick Taylor

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Clinical trial

Vertex discusses Kalydeco data analysis vendor mix up
The table that caused shares in Vertex to plunge last week was the only use of relative data in the third-party analysis, the biotech’s CEO said. 

Shares in Vertex dropped by as much as 20 per cent last week after a mix up with a data analysis firm led the biotech to overstate interim Phase II results. Vertex publicly took a share of the blame but its CEO has now said how a lack of consistency from the service provider contributed to the error.

It was the only piece of data of all the data tables we got from that vendor in this particular case that was relative. All the rest were absolute​”, Jeffrey Leiden, CEO of Vertex, said at the Sanford C Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference.

Vertex has always presented absolute data, Kalydeco (ivacaftor), for example, used this format, so the use of relative figures, in just one statistical table, by the third-party is somewhat surprising.

When contacted by Outsourcing-Pharma.com last week Vertex declined to say whether it will continue to work with the data analysis service provider. Leiden said Vertex is “taking steps to…make sure it doesn’t happen again​” and his comments last week suggest the vendor could have been clearer.

Vertex will apply these checks to final data from the Phase II trial in the next month. “When we see that final data, of course, it will give us more patients, more confidence, we’ll have more statistics…and all of that we will make available to you after it’s carefully checked by us​”, Leiden said.

In the immediate aftermath of Vertex posting the revised data shares in the biotech tumbled by as much as 20 per cent. However, shares rallied throughout the day to close down 11 per cent. On Friday shares in Vertex closed down 8 per cent on the pre-drop value.

Related news

Related products

show more

More Data, More Insights, More Progress

More Data, More Insights, More Progress

Content provided by Saama | 04-Mar-2024 | Case Study

The sponsor’s clinical development team needed a flexible solution to quickly visualize patient and site data in a single location

Using Define-XML to build more efficient studies

Using Define-XML to build more efficient studies

Content provided by Formedix | 14-Nov-2023 | White Paper

It is commonly thought that Define-XML is simply a dataset descriptor: a way to document what datasets look like, including the names and labels of datasets...

Related suppliers

Follow us

Products

View more

Webinars