AbbVie Announces NEJM Online Publication of Venetoclax Phase 1 Data in Relapsed/Refractory Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

AbbVie

today announced the online publication of new data in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) showing some patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) treated with venetoclax experienced a response, including complete responses. The article reports data from Arm A of the study, in which all patients had relapsed CLL and more than one-third were refractory to their last treatment. Venetoclax is an investigational, first-in-class, B-cell lymphoma-2 (BCL-2) inhibitor being developed and commercialized by AbbVie and Genentech and Roche. "Venetoclax is thought to inhibit the activity of BCL-2, an important anti-apoptotic protein," said Andrew W. Roberts, M.D., Department of Clinical Haematology and BMT, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Australia, and lead author on the NEJM paper. "In this arm of the dose-escalation study, we assessed safety and efficacy measures for venetoclax in patients with relapsed or refractory CLL." In arm A of the M12-175 study, venetoclax had an overall response rate of 79 percent