{"entity":{"id":"veliparib","kind":"drug","name":"Veliparib","aka":[],"tldr":"Veliparib is a PARP inhibitor that AbbVie tested with chemotherapy in breast cancer. It added nothing to carboplatin before surgery (BrighTNess) and lengthened progression-free but not overall survival with carboplatin and paclitaxel in inherited BRCA advanced disease (BROCADE3), so it was never licensed.","summary":"Veliparib inhibits the catalytic activity of PARP1 and PARP2 but traps PARP on DNA far less than olaparib or talazoparib, which is why it could be combined with full-dose chemotherapy where the other PARP inhibitors cannot. That property was tested in two phase 3 breast cancer trials. In BrighTNess (634 patients, stage II to III triple-negative disease) paclitaxel with carboplatin and veliparib gave a pathological complete response in 53 percent against 58 percent with paclitaxel and carboplatin and 31 percent with paclitaxel alone, so the gain came from carboplatin; at 4.5 years the event-free survival hazard ratio for the veliparib arm against carboplatin alone was 1.12. In BROCADE3 (509 patients with a germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation and HER2-negative advanced breast cancer, up to two prior chemotherapy lines) adding veliparib to carboplatin and paclitaxel improved median progression-free survival from 12.6 to 14.5 months (hazard ratio 0.71, p 0.0016) but final overall survival was 32.4 versus 28.2 months (hazard ratio 0.92, p 0.43), with grade 3 or worse neutropenia in 81 versus 84 percent and thrombocytopenia in 40 versus 28 percent. AbbVie did not file for approval in breast cancer; veliparib remains an investigational agent and the two trials are the reference for why weak PARP trapping with chemotherapy did not translate into survival.","status":"negative","asOf":"2026-09-24","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veliparib","links":[{"label":"BrighTNess primary results (Lancet Oncology 2018)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(18)30111-6"},{"label":"BrighTNess 4-year follow-up (Annals of Oncology 2022)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annonc.2022.01.009"},{"label":"BROCADE3 primary results (Lancet Oncology 2020)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(20)30447-2"},{"label":"BROCADE3 final overall survival (European Journal of Cancer 2024)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejca.2024.113580"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["tnbc","tnbc-early","tnbc-metastatic","breast-hr-positive"],"sections":[],"technologies":["parp-inhibitor"],"targets":["parp","brca"],"drugs":[],"companies":["abbvie"],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":["brightness","brocade3"],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"code":"ABT-888","modality":"Small-molecule PARP inhibitor (weak PARP trapper)","mechanism":"Catalytic inhibition of PARP1 and PARP2 with minimal PARP-DNA trapping; sensitises to platinum and alkylating chemotherapy.","approvals":[],"mechanismSteps":[],"toxicity":[{"event":"Neutropenia (grade 3 or worse), with carboplatin and paclitaxel","grade3PlusPct":81,"source":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(20)30447-2","note":"BROCADE3 veliparib arm; 84 percent in the placebo arm"},{"event":"Thrombocytopenia (grade 3 or worse)","grade3PlusPct":40,"source":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(20)30447-2","note":"BROCADE3 veliparib arm; 28 percent with placebo"}],"access":[],"regulatoryEvents":[]},"route":"/drugs/veliparib/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"tnbc-early","kind":"cancer","name":"Early triple-negative breast cancer","route":"/cancers/tnbc-early/"},{"id":"breast-hr-positive","kind":"cancer","name":"HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer","route":"/cancers/breast-hr-positive/"},{"id":"tnbc-metastatic","kind":"cancer","name":"Metastatic triple-negative breast cancer","route":"/cancers/tnbc-metastatic/"},{"id":"tnbc","kind":"cancer","name":"Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)","route":"/cancers/tnbc/"}],"technology":[{"id":"parp-inhibitor","kind":"technology","name":"PARP inhibitors","route":"/technologies/parp-inhibitor/"}],"target":[{"id":"brca","kind":"target","name":"BRCA1 / BRCA2 (HRD)","route":"/targets/brca/"},{"id":"parp","kind":"target","name":"PARP","route":"/targets/parp/"}],"company":[{"id":"abbvie","kind":"company","name":"AbbVie (incl. ImmunoGen, Capstan)","route":"/companies/abbvie/"}],"trial":[{"id":"brightness","kind":"trial","name":"BrighTNess","route":"/trials/brightness/"},{"id":"brocade3","kind":"trial","name":"BROCADE3","route":"/trials/brocade3/"}]}}