The study tested Adcetris in combination with a three-drug
chemotherapy regimen, AVD, compared with standard of care, to treat
advanced Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1,334 patients who have had no prior
treatments.
Adcetris is already approved in the United States to treat patients
with classical Hodgkin's lymphoma, who have already received a stem
cell transplant or two chemotherapy treatments. The drug is also
approved to treat patients with anaplastic large cell lymphoma that
have gone through one chemotherapy treatment.
The study, which tested the combination as an initial treatment,
showed 82.1 percent lower risk of cancer progression in the
combination therapy, compared with 77.2 percent in the control arm.
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The standard-of-care chemotherapy, ABVD, combines adriamycin,
bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine.
Doctors for long have been trying to get rid of bleomycin from the
chemotherapy regimen to increase the long-term durable response rate
and decrease toxicity, Seattle Genetics Chief Executive Clay Siegall
told Reuters.
Seattle Genetics, which partnered with Takeda to co-develop and
commercialize Adcetris outside the United States, retains marketing
rights for the drug in the United States and Canada.
Adcetris, known chemically as brentuximab vedotin, links a
tumor-targeting antibody to a cancer-killing chemotherapy drug with
the goal of limiting side effects. It is designed to home in on an
antigen, or a foreign substance, in Hodgkin's lymphoma and in
several types of T-cell lymphoma and other hematologic malignancies.
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Hodgkin's lymphoma is a type of cancer that starts in white blood
cells. It typically begins in the lymph nodes in one region of the
body and then spreads throughout the lymph system.
According to the American Cancer Society, about 8,260 Americans were
diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma so far in 2017, out of which about
1,070 died.
The U.S. drug developer said it would file for an expanded label as
soon as possible.
The drug, which generated about $71 million in North America sales
last year, is also being developed in combination with Bristol-Myers
Squibb's immunotherapy, Opdivo, to treat relapsed Hodgkin's
lymphoma.
(Reporting by Divya Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
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