Breaking Down the VERIFY Trial for Patients With Polycythemia Vera

Data from the phase 3 VERIFY trial were shared at the 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting, where investigators noted that rusfertide may be a potential treatment option for patients with polycythemia vera, a type of blood cancer, according to Dr. Aaron Gerds. This is because the investigational therapeutic agent was able to reduce or eliminate the need for phlebotomies, a procedure which removes extra blood cells from the body by using a needle to take blood from the vein, improving quality of life and symptom control.

To further discuss this data, Gerds sat down for an interview with CURE, in which he highlighted what patients should know about the VERIFY trial following the ASCO Meeting.

Transcript:

What should patients know about the VERIFY trial, presented at this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting?

The ASCO Annual Meeting is always a challenging conference for those of us in hematology. Hematologic neoplasms often represent a smaller portion of the larger ASCO meeting, and sometimes you really have to sift through numerous abstracts to find something truly impressive. However, this year, we had the fortunate event of a hematologic malignancy being featured as a plenary abstract. This is the prestigious session where they select the top few abstracts to present to a huge, enormous crowd, genuinely highlighting the importance of this research.

The fact that it concerns polycythemia vera is particularly significant for a somewhat rare blood cancer that often doesn't receive much attention. It's a disease we've known a great deal about for a long time but have relatively few approved therapies. As of today, there are only two FDA-approved drugs for polycythemia vera: Jakafi (ruxolitinib), approved in the second-line setting, and Besremi (ropeginterferon alfa-2b-njft), approved for all settings. Given this limited therapeutic landscape, a new, effective drug like rusfertide, which presents a completely different mechanism, is absolutely warranted for the field.

The trial presented at this year's ASCO meeting was a classic, definitive phase 3 registration study. It included patients who received the drug and those who did not, allowing for a thorough comparison with all the statistical power needed for regulatory approval. This was the trial in question.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.