Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co. Ltd. said its drug mogamulizumab was better at containing the cancer in patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma when compared to Merck & Co. Inc.'s Zolinza, or vorinostat.
The company announced results from the MAVORIC phase 3 study at the American Society of Hematology 2017, which compared both drugs against each other in patients who had failed at least one prior systemic treatment.
Patients who received mogamulizumab, which is also known as Poteligeo and KW-0761, had a median progression-free survival of 7.7 months, a measure of how long the patient lived without the disease worsening. This would compare to 3.1 months for vorinostat.
Of the 372 patients enrolled in the study, 28% of those who received mogamulizumab achieved a reduction in their tumor size. This would compare to 4.8% of those treated with vorinostat.
Mogamulizumab was first approved in Japan in 2012 for different blood-related malignancies and in 2014 for use in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of blood cancer.
The drug is currently under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Union as a treatment for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma in patients who have received at least one prior systemic therapy.
