Health Rounds: Regeneron drug wipes out residual multiple myeloma cells in small trial
A recently approved antibody drug from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals eradicates residual traces of multiple myeloma after initial treatments, potentially allowing patients to avoid grueling bone marrow transplants, preliminary data from a small mid-stage trial suggest.
Usually, individuals with residual cancer cells, accounting for roughly half of patients treated with modern first-line drugs, would go on to receive high-dose toxic chemotherapy to destroy the remaining cancer cells and a bone marrow transplant to regrow healthy replacements. Study leader Dr. C. Ola Landgren of University of Miami Miller School of Medicine called the regimen “a brutal treatment.”
Instead, patients in the study received Regeneron’s Lynozyfic, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July for treatment of recurrent multiple myeloma.
While most therapeutic antibodies attach to a single target, Lynozyfic attaches to two, CD3, a protein on T cells that destroys cancerous cells, and BCMA, a protein on multiple myeloma cells.
None of the 18 trial participants who have so far completed up to six cycles of treatment with Lynozyfic have had detectable residual disease afterward on highly sensitive tests, the researchers reported at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting in Orlando.
Ultimately they plan to enroll a total of 50 patients.
Those who test negative for residual multiple myeloma cells can expect to live years longer without their cancer returning than those positive for it, Landgren said in a statement.
“Based on my experience, I would predict that after having such a good response after such a short time, the disease most likely could stay away for many years,” he said. “Could it never come back in some patients? I would say it’s possible.”
