KITE > Kite Pharma's Lead Cancer Candidate Shows Promising Results
15 hours 46 minutes ago - DJNF
By Maria Armental
Kite Pharma Inc. said more than two-thirds of patients treated with its proposed lymphoma treatment responded to the therapy, with more than 40% showing a complete remission, according to an interim analysis of a mid-stage clinical trial.
Shares of the biopharmaceutical company, down 11% this year, jumped 9% to $60 in after-hours trade.
Santa Monica, Calif.-based Kite, which develops therapies that use a patient's immune system to treat cancer, plans to seek regulatory approval of KTE-C19, its lead product candidate, to treat patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, DLBCL; transformed follicular lymphoma, TFL; and primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, PMBCL.
Kite is developing KTE-C19 with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Inc.
Kite's treatment is aimed at genetically modifying patients' T-cells, which help fight disease. Juno Therapeutics Inc. also is developing a similar therapy, and shares of that company rose 4% to $30.85 in after-hours trading.
Kite's Phase 2 clinical trial included 51 patients with DLBCL, the most common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and 11 patients with TFL and PMBCL. Two patients died. The most common adverse events were neutropenia, an abnormally low count of a type of white blood cells that fight infection, and anemia.
The preliminary analysis showed that 76% of those with DLBCL treated with KTE-C19 showed improvement with 47% in complete remission, and 91% of those with TFL or PMBCL showing improvement with 73% in remission. After three months, 39% of those with DLBCL showed improvement with 33% in remission and 64% of those with TFL or PMBCL showed improvement with also 64% in remission.
Kite plans to release the primary analysis of 101 patients with about six months of follow-up in the first quarter of 2017.
Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com
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