Roche upbeat on new drug study results
Roche
Fr.236.80
18:56 18/04/24
Roche announced new data from the ‘Venclexta’/’Venclyxto’ (venetoclax) clinical development programme on Tuesday, including longer-term results from the phase III MURANO study in people with previously-treated chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).
The Swiss pharmaceutical giant also announced updated data from two phase Ib/II studies in people with previously-untreated acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), who were ineligible for intensive chemotherapy due to coexisting medical conditions.
It said two new analyses of the phase III MURANO study in relapsed or refractory (R/R) CLL demonstrated the continued clinical benefit of Venclexta/Venclyxto plus ‘MabThera’/’Rituxan’ (rituximab) was sustained after patients completed the chemotherapy-free, two-year fixed-duration course of therapy.
Meanwhile, the updated data from the phase Ib M14-358 and phase I/II M14-387 studies evaluating Venclexta/Venclyxto in combination with a hypomethylating agent or low-dose cytarabine (LDAC) in people with previously-untreated AML who were ineligible for intensive chemotherapy showed that, among patients who were dependent upon blood transfusions at baseline, about half were able to achieve transfusion independence.
In this case, independence meant the absence of transfusions during any consecutive 56 days during the study treatment period.
No unexpected safety signals were observed with Venclexta/Venclxyto in combination with hypomethylating agents or LDAC, Roche reported.
"We're excited by the versatility of Venclexta/Venclyxto in treating a range of distinct types of blood cancer, including difficult-to-treat forms with limited options," said Roche’s chief medical officer and head of global product development Sandra Horning.
“These data support our broad clinical development programme through which we hope to discover more ways Venclexta/Venclyxto can be used alone or in combination with other medicines to treat additional types of cancer.”
Data from the Venclexta/Venclyxto clinical development programme, which ranged across multiple blood cancers including CLL, AML, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma, would be featured in more than 30 abstracts, including 12 oral presentations, at the 60th American Society of Hematology 2018 annual meeting, the company said.