The US biotech company Amgen announced at the end of November that its cancer therapy BLINCYTO® has been approved by the European Commission for the treatment of certain forms of leukaemia. The US Federal Drug Administration gave its approval a year previously. BLINCYTO® is the first drug to be approved from the BiTE® family – a group of novel agents that use the patient’s own immune system for the targeted destruction of cancer cells.
The approach is based on intellectual property from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine Berlin-Buch. It was originally developed by the Munich start-up Micromet, which was subsequently acquired by Amgen. ‘We are delighted that this new therapy will now become available to a group of leukaemia patients here in Europe, who up to now have had hardly any treatment options,’ says Dr Elisabeth von Weizsäcker, Ascenion’s Director in Berlin.
Amgen is evaluating further fields of application for BLINCYTO® and its BiTE® platform. At the beginning of December, the company announced a cooperation with MSD, for the clinical development of BLINCYTO® in combination with the therapeutic antibody KEYTRUDA® for the treatment of a particularly common form of leukaemia. In addition, Amgen announced further encouraging data from three Phase II studies of BLINCYTO® at this week’s international ASH Annual Meeting.
More information:
- <link http: www.multivu.com players english _blank external-link-new-window>Press release from Amgen on the European Commission approval of BLINCYTO®
- <link http: www.amgen.com media news-releases amgen-and-merck-announce-cancer-immunotherapy-collaboration-for-patients-with-non-hodgkin-lymphoma _blank external-link-new-window>Press release from Amgen and MSD (known as Merck in the USA) on their cooperation
- <link http: www.amgen.com media news-releases amgen-presents-data-from-three-trials-evaluating-blincyto-blinatumomab-in-acute-lymphoblastic-leukemia-at-ash-2015 _blank external-link-new-window>Press release from Amgen on the presentation of Phase II data at ASH 2015