trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/j5n_rgvahvebl-15z421ba2 content esgSubNav
In This List

ASCO conference: Agios' blood cancer drug shows benefits in Celgene combos

Blog

A Pharmaceutical Company Capitalizes on M&A Activity with Brokerage Research

Blog

2021 Year in Review: Highlighting Key Investment Banking Trends

Blog

Insight Weekly: US stock performance; banks' M&A risk; COVID-19 vaccine makers' earnings

Blog

Global M&A By the Numbers: Q3 2021


ASCO conference: Agios' blood cancer drug shows benefits in Celgene combos

Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. said the medicines ivosidenib or enasidenib, in combination with Celgene Corp.'s Vidaza, helped shrink tumors in a type of blood cancer in a study.

The phase 1/2 study included patients who were newly diagnosed with isocitrate dehydrogenase mutant acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, patients and were unable to receive intensive chemotherapy.

Researchers found that 78% of 23 patients who took the experimental ivosidenib in combination with Vidaza, also known as azacitidine, had an overall response, or some reduction in the cancer. Complete response, or the disappearance of all signs of cancer, was reported in 44% of the 23 patients, while 22% had a complete response with incomplete hematologic or platelet recovery.

AML, a cancer of blood and bone marrow characterized by rapid disease progression, is the most common acute leukemia affecting adults. The five-year survival rate for AML is about 27%.

The median time to first response was 1.8 months, while the median time to best response was 3.6 months. The median duration of response has not been reached, the Cambridge, Mass.-based biopharmaceutical company said.

Meanwhile, four out of six patients who took enasidenib, marketed by Celgene as Idhifa, in combination with Vidaza, achieved a response, including three complete responses and one morphologic leukemia-free state — meeting all complete response criteria without recovery of both neutrophil and platelet counts in the bloodstream.

The most common side effects for those in the ivosidenib arm were nausea, anemia and thrombocytopenia, or low platelet count. The most common side effects for the enasidenib arm were hyperbilirubinemia, or too much bilirubin in the blood, and abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and fever.

"With additional patients now treated in the ivosidenib arm of this phase 1 study, the updated combination data demonstrate a favorable safety profile and impressive response rates versus those expected with azacitidine alone," said Courtney DiNardo, lead investigator and assistant professor, department of leukemia at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Celgene has worldwide development rights to Idhifa under a 2010 collaboration agreement with Agios, which conducts certain clinical activities.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted ivosidenib, also known by the brand name Tibsovo, priority review in February 2018 for AML patients whose disease has either returned or is resistant to treatment and exhibits the isocitrate dehydrogenase-1, or IDH1, mutation. Agios released data from a separate study of ivosidenib in a type of AML at the conference.

The 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting is expected to bring together more than 32,000 professionals from all over the world, with more than 2,500 study abstracts to be presented on site and an additional 3,350 abstracts to be published online.