Jan 4 (Reuters) - Geron Corp (GERN.O) said on Wednesday its experimental blood cancer drug helped more patients achieve independence from blood transfusions when compared with a placebo in a late-stage trial, sending its shares up 50%.
Geron's lead drug, imetelstat, was being studied in patients with a type of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a difficult to treat family of blood cancers.
Patients with the disease require frequent blood transfusions to manage their anemia.
The drug also met its secondary goal, with 28% of the patients using the drug not needing transfusion for 24 weeks, compared with 3.3% of the patients on placebo.
Geron is also testing the drug for myelofibrosis, a rare type of bone marrow cancer, and expects an interim analysis in 2024.