Astellas and Seattle Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SGEN) highlighted updated phase 1 data for enfortumab vedotin (ASG-22ME) studied as monotherapy treatment for metastatic urothelial cancer (mUC) in an oral presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 52nd Annual Meeting in Chicago. Enfortumab vedotin is an investigational antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that targets Nectin-4, a cell surface protein expressed in multiple solid tumors including mUC, ovarian cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Based on the data from the ongoing phase 1 clinical trial, the companies this year plan to initiate a registrational monotherapy phase 2 trial for locally advanced or mUC patients who have been previously treated with checkpoint inhibitor (CPI) therapy. A trial evaluating enfortumab vedotin in combination with CPIs is also planned for later this year as part of a broad clinical development program.
The year’s merger-and-acquisition trend continues. Today, the last day of January, Bothell, Washington-based Seattle Genetics announced it is buying Seattle-based Cascadian Therapeutics for about $614 million.
Seattle Genetics, Inc. (SGEN) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ADCETRIS (brentuximab vedotin) for the treatment of adult patients with primary cutaneous anaplastic large cell lymphoma (pcALCL) and CD30-expressing mycosis fungoides (MF) who have received prior systemic therapy. Primary cutaneous ALCL and MF are the most common subtypes of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL).
In October, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) granted PRIME designation to GSK2857916 for the treatment of relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma patients whose prior therapy included a proteasome inhibitor, an immunomodulatory agent and an anti-CD38 antibody. GSK2857916 is an anti B-cell maturation agent (BCMA) monoclonal antibody-drug conjugate.
If you can’t beat them, join them. After Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo topped Seagen’s classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) therapy Adcetris in a head-to-head trial, Seagen has trotted out new datasets suggesting the two drugs—a PD-1 inhibitor and an antibody-drug conjugate—hold potential when paired together as part of a combination. In a midstage study, all patients with early-stage cHL who received a combination of Adcetris, Opdivo and the chemotherapy regimen AD (doxorubicin and dacarbazine) were alive without disease progression after one year of treatment. The analysis came from 150 patients enrolled in part C of the phase 2 SGN35-027 trial and was shared at the 65th American Society of Hematology annual meeting. The data look promising, but cHL is known to be relatively easy to treat. In an interview, Megan O’Meara, M.D., Seagen’s head of clinical development, acknowledged that people want to see longer-term data—and ultimately a survival benefit—in frontline cHL. ...
Bluebird Bio, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLUE) and Celgene Corporation (Nasdaq: CELG) today announced that the companies have entered into an agreement to co-develop and co-promote bb2121, an investigational anti-B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for the potential treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma in the United States.
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