Tasgina updates of ENEST programme in Ph+CML presented at ASCO meeting

Two Phase III studies from the ENEST clinical research program, demonstrate that twice as many adult patients with Philadelphia chromosome-positive Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (Ph+ CML) in chronic phase treated with Tasigna (nilotinib) from Novartis achieved deeper levels of response compared to those treated with imatinib. These findings were first presented at the 2011 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and include: - ENESTnd 36-month update which showed the superiority of Tasigna vs. imatinib for the treatment of patients with newly diagnosed chronic phase Ph+ CML, with 32% of patients reaching the deepest levels of response on Tasigna compared to 15% on imatinib (abstract #6509; June 1, 1:00PM - 5:00PM). -ENESTcmr 12-month analysis demonstrated that switching patients with detectable Bcr-Abl transcripts from imatinib to Tasigna resulted in deeper molecular responses compared to those patients who remained on imatinib, with 23% of patients switched to Tasigna achieving undetectable levels of Bcr-Abl compared to 11% who continued on imatinib (abstract #6505; June 4, 9:30AM - 9:45AM).