GSK PLC (LSE:GSK, NYSE:GSK) cancer discovery Blenrep's blockbuster potential has been 'reawakened', according to Shore Capital.
The broker was commenting after Thursday's phase III results, which showed the drug performed significantly better than the standard of care in patients with a hard-to-treat blood-borne cancer called multiple myeloma.
Shore pointed out that Blenrep's contribution to GSK's future revenues had been largely airbrushed out after a previous trial failure. Before that, analysts had been predicting potentially more than £3 billion, or $5 billion per year in sales.
That would have placed the treatment firmly in the blockbuster category, which denotes a drug that generates more than $1 billion annually.
After the outstanding results from the phase III DREAMM-8 trial, Shore believes Blenrep could again make a meaningful contribution to GSK's top line.
It said: "We view this positive result from DREAMM-8 as another important step to renewing expectations for Blenrep, albeit we sense this will still require seeing some robust OS [overall survival] data across both studies once these have reached maturity, particularly given the efficacy some of the CAR-T based treatments have recently been demonstrating in MM [multiple myeloma], and the entrenchment of Darzalex."