Celgene Corp. said its chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy remained effective in patients with a type of blood cancer six months after treatment.
CAR-T cell therapies work by manipulating a patient's own disease-fighting T cells and then infusing them back into the body to fight blood cancers.
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Updated data from a phase 1 study, named Transcend, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting looked at six-month results in patients with aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma whose disease did not respond to treatment or had returned after therapy.
B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma is cancer that starts in a type of white blood cell called B lymphocytes, which help protect the body against bacteria or viruses by making proteins called antibodies.
Results from the trial showed that 49% of 37 patients — who were treated with a dose of 100 million CAR-T cells — remained in remission six months after treatment with Celgene's liso-cel, also called JCAR017.
Among these patients, 46% did not have detectable levels of the disease in their system, a metric known as a complete response, six months after treatment.
The most common side effects from the treatment included low levels of white blood cells called neutrophils, low levels of healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin, fatigue, low blood platelet count, decreased appetite, nausea, low blood pressure, cough, headache, dizziness, constipation and diarrhea.
In earlier results, the treatment showed a reduction in the disease in 74% of 67 patients, with 68% of patients showing no signs of the cancer.
Nadim Ahmed, president of hematology and oncology for Celgene, said the company expects to progress its program for poor-prognosis patients with this disease and also plans to investigate the liso-cel treatment's potential in "earlier lines of therapy."
Celgene previously worked with Juno Therapeutics Inc. to develop JCAR017 under a collaboration aimed at developing treatments for patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases using T-cell therapeutic strategies and acquired Juno this March.
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.

