AbbVie’s dual targeting ABBV-466 beats single drug treatment on endoscopic remission in Phase 2a Crohn’s disease study

Posted on October 20, 2026

AbbVie has reported that its investigational therapy ABBV-466 produced higher rates of endoscopic remission at Week 12 than either of the two drugs it combines, in patients with moderate to severe Crohn’s disease. ABBV-466 pairs an IL-23 p19 blocker with an inhibitor of integrin α4β7. The gap between the combination and the single drug groups widened further by Week 24. The results come from the TARGET-CD study and are being presented as a late-breaking abstract at United European Gastroenterology Week in Barcelona, which runs from 17 to 20 October.

Kori Wallace, M.D., vice president and global head of immunology clinical development at AbbVie, said ABBV-466 shows how the company is building the next generation of its inflammatory bowel disease portfolio, drawing on its own research to target disease pathways that may stay active even when a central inflammatory pathway is blocked. She said AbbVie’s research found signs of α4β7 driven inflammation despite IL-23 p19 inhibition with risankizumab, which led the company to add a new α4β7 inhibitor, trosunilimab, to risankizumab. She said the TARGET-CD results support the strategy of designing treatments around the complex biology of Crohn’s disease.

TARGET-CD is an ongoing, open label, treat through Phase 2a platform study. It enrolled 300 patients with moderately to severely active Crohn’s disease, who were randomised equally to 24 weeks of risankizumab (94 patients), trosunilimab (100 patients) or ABBV-466 (106 patients). The primary endpoint was endoscopic remission at Week 12, defined as a Simple Endoscopic Score for Crohn’s Disease of 4 or below with no sub score above 1 in any individual variable. Further prespecified endpoints were assessed at Weeks 12 and 24, and safety was tracked through Week 24.

The population covered a wide range of disease severity and prior treatment. A quarter of patients had never taken a biologic, while 75 per cent had failed at least one advanced therapy. That included 9.3 per cent who had failed an earlier IL-23 therapy and 12 per cent who had failed a JAK inhibitor, and a quarter had failed three or more advanced therapies. AbbVie says this reflects the real world complexity of Crohn’s disease, where varied disease biology can lead to different responses to treatment.

At Week 12, 30.2 per cent of patients on ABBV-466 reached endoscopic remission, compared with 21.3 per cent on risankizumab and 18.0 per cent on trosunilimab. By Week 24 the difference had grown, with 40.5 per cent of ABBV-466 patients in endoscopic remission against 22.4 per cent on risankizumab and 20.0 per cent on trosunilimab.

Gene expression analyses showed that ABBV-466 led to repair of the colonic lining and restoration of the gut barrier by Week 12. By Week 24 there were signs of tissue remodelling and metabolic changes, which were generally not seen with either single drug.

Remo Panaccione, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Unit in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Calgary, said many people with Crohn’s disease move from one advanced therapy to the next and still have active inflammation in the bowel even when their symptoms improve. He said endoscopic remission is a goal because continuing inflammation can drive disease progression over time. In his view, what stands out in TARGET-CD is that a dual targeting approach reached that goal more often than either therapy alone in a heavily pretreated group.

Serious adverse events occurred in 10.4 per cent of patients on ABBV-466, comparable to 9.6 per cent on risankizumab and 9.0 per cent on trosunilimab. The most common adverse events, affecting 5 per cent or more of patients, were Crohn’s disease and nausea in the ABBV-466 and trosunilimab groups, and Crohn’s disease and joint pain in the risankizumab group.

The data are being presented on Monday 19 October 2026 from 10:10 to 10:20 a.m. CEST in the UEG Forum room, under the title “ABBV-466, A Novel Dual-Targeting Therapy, Leads to Endoscopic Remission in Moderate-to-Severe Crohn’s Disease: Primary Results and Molecular Profiling From the Phase 2a TARGET-CD Study”. The study is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT06548542.

ABBV-466 is investigational, and regulators have not established its safety or efficacy.

I pulled the full text from the link you sent. I left out the Skyrizi EU safety information and the company boilerplate, as with earlier articles. Say the word if you want hashtags for this one.

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