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ASCO conference: Novartis leukemia drug keeps about 50% of patients cancer-free

Novartis AG's leukemia drug Tasigna is able to keep almost half of its patients cancer-free for nearly three years after stopping treatment, new data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference showed.

The findings come from two midstage, 144-week clinical trials evaluating whether adult patients who took Tasigna either as a first-line or second-line therapy option can stay in remission.

These patients have specific form of white blood cell cancer called Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia in the chronic phase, or Ph+ CML-CP.

With Ph+ CML-CP the body produces malignant white blood cells in patients with a genetic abnormality known as the Philadelphia chromosome. The Philadelphia chromosome produces a protein called BCR-ABL that causes the chronic myeloid leukemia cells to grow and reproduce out of control.

In one of the trials, 48.4% of patients who took Tasigna in second-line therapy — after switching from another Novartis cancer drug known as Gleevec or Glivec — were cancer free for almost three years after stopping treatment.

Moreover, nearly all of the patients who restarted Tasigna treatment regained molecular response during the study period. Molecular response refers to a state in which the level of BCR-ABL protein detectable in the patient's bone marrow is very low.

Similar results were reported in the second trial with patients who started first-line treatment with Tasigna. About 46.8% of patients maintained molecular response after stopping treatment.

Tasigna is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2007. In March, it was approved to also treat Ph+ CML-CP in children.

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.