News to stay informed in the field of current CLL drugs:
Roche digs its heels into CLL just a bit more
Company: Roche (OTCQX:RHHBF)
Therapy: Rituximab
Disease: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
News: Results of the open-label MABLE study were published in the journal Haematologica, giving a look at the use of bendamustine-rituximab in patients who are ineligible for fludarabine-based standard therapy. Compared with rituximab-chlorambucil, rituximab-bendamustine yielded improved complete remission rates and progression-free survival in the first-line setting. Tolerability was generally similar, overall, although more patients did discontinue rituximab-bendamustine due to toxicity.
Looking forward: These findings may not be that sexy to a biotech investor, since rituximab is generally on its way out for RHHBF as a key moneymaker due to the loss of patent protection. However, in the world of CLL, the question as to what therapy should be used for which patients remains critical, and a lot of patients with this disease are elderly and have comorbidities. So this kind of news helps clinicians nail down ideal treatment selection that balances toxicity and efficacy for each patient. This has important implications for other drugs in the space, like obinutuzumab (made by Roche) and ibrutinib (made by AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV)), which are currently infiltrating the first-line treatment space. And it is possible that we'll see studies comparing the regimens in the near future.
Not immediately and obviously impactful, but it's still important news for patients and clinicians, and the astute investor will be as knowledgeable in the whole field of CLL management as he/she can.
