Bristol Myers delays Cobenfy Alzheimer’s psychosis readout again amid another quarterly beat

Pharma Bristol Myers delays Cobenfy Alzheimer’s psychosis readout again amid another quarterly beat By Angus Liu Jul 30, 2026 10:12am Bristol Myers Squibb Cobenfy Earnings Eliquis Investors anxiously waiting for Bristol Myers Squibb’s key Alzheimer’s disease psychosis readout for Cabenfy will have to wait a little longer. The company has once again delayed the expected phase 3 data from its Adept trial program, even as it delivered a group-wide quarterly beat that’s driving a significant forecast raise. Rather than readouts in 2026, BMS now expects data from the three Adept trials to arrive beginning in early 2027 and be “spread across the year,” CEO Chris Boerner, Ph.D., said on the company’s earnings call Thursday.

The delay was attributed to slower enrollment in the Adept-2 and Adept-4 studies and slower relapse event accrual in Adept-1, Boerner explained. Adept-1 could undergo an interim analysis as early as later this year, and BMS also plans to share safety and efficacy data this year from the trial’s open-label lead-in portion, he added. The timeline extension is again cooling momentum for one of BMS’ most closely watched assets, even as solid financial results continue to keep the company looking pretty on the top line.

The company first pushed back Adept-2’s readout near the end of 2025 after identifying irregularities at certain trial sites. In its first-quarter update in April 2026, BMS still expected all three Adept trials to report results this year. Slower accrual of relapse events could be viewed as a positive sign, BMS Chief Medical Officer Cristian Massacesi, M.D., said on Thursday’s call, suggesting Cobenfy could be pulling its weight.

Because the trial remains blinded, however, BMS can only speculate whether the effect came from Cobenfy or from the control arm outperforming historical experience. As for the slow enrollment, Massacesi framed it as a result of efforts to ensure that patients meet the trial’s eligibility criteria and that enrollment is of sufficient quality to give the study the best chance of success. He added that BMS has implemented several measures to accelerate patient recruitment.

“There has been no change, in any way, in our confidence in both the underlying science, the scientific rationale, and also the study designs that we are implementing in the Adept program,” Massacesi said. Related BMS taps Anthropic’s Claude for enterprise-wide AI adoption to speed R&D, global workflows With the timing of the Alzheimer’s psychosis readout still uncertain, Cobenfy continues to have a rather muted launch in schizophrenia. The first-in-class drug, which BMS acquired through its $14 billion buyout of Karuna Therapeutics, generated $63 million in second-quarter sales (PDF), largely in line with analysts’ consensus estimates.

Cobenfy in Alzheimer’s psychosis is not the only pivotal BMS program facing a delay. Librexia-AF, a phase 3 trial evaluating BMS’ Factor XIa inhibitor milvexian for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation, is now slated to read out in the first quarter of 2027 rather than this year. Boerner again attributed the delay to the pace of event accrual.

Massacesi cited the slower pace as a potentially favorable sign that the trial could meet both its primary endpoint of noninferiority to BMS’ Eliquis and its secondary endpoint of superiority in reducing bleeding. Massacesi assured investors that the delays affecting Cobenfy and milvexian were not related to any study conduct issues. Speaking of Eliquis, despite its price cut under the Inflation Reduction Act, the Pfizer-partnered blood thinner saw sales jump 22% to $4.5 billion in the second quarter, landing nearly 13% above analysts’ expectations.

As a result of the strong performance so far, BMS significantly increased its full-year Eliquis revenue guidance by 10 percentage points to a new range of 20% to 25%. Meanwhile, another prominent older product, Revlimid, continued to give. Sales from the off-patent blood cancer med were halved year over year, but the $425 million haul was twice the consensus estimate.

Overall, BMS recorded nearly $13 billion in total revenue, up 5.7% year over year and 10.6% above Wall Street’s consensus estimate. On the back of the strong quarterly performance, BMS raised its full-year revenue outlook to between $49 billion and $50 billion, up from its previous range of $46 billion to $47.5 billion. Bristol Myers Squibb Cobenfy Earnings Eliquis atrial fibrillation Clinical Data Financials Pharma