Drugs by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY:US) and Merck & Co. (MRK:US) showed promise in early trial results for treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, potentially expanding the types of cancer they may be able to fight.
The drugs work by blocking a pathway called PD-1 to boost the immune system and battle cancer cells that manage to evade the body’s natural defenses. Merck’s drug, Keytruda, has already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
The medicines are part of a class in one of the hottest areas of cancer research, known as immunotherapy because it stimulates patients’ immune systems to work more effectively against the disease. Clinical trials on immunotherapies have shown the drugs may have a significant benefit for a minority of patients. Companies such as Merck, Bristol-Myers, AstraZeneca Plc and Roche Holding AG began at least 78 clinical trials on such drugs last year.
Keytruda, also known as pembrolizumab, shrank tumors in 66 percent of a group of 29 patients, Merck said yesterday. Twenty-one percent of the patients went into complete remission in the Phase 1 trial, which will be followed with larger studies.
In a separate Phase 1 trial published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Bristol-Myers drug Opdivo, or nivolumab, shrank tumors in 87 percent of 23 patients, with 17 percent going into remission.
Hodgkin’s lymphoma will be diagnosed in an estimated 9,190 U.S. patients this year and will cause the death of about 1,180 people, according to the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. The disease begins in the white-blood cells and most commonly strikes people from ages 15 to 35 and older than 55.
To contact the reporter on this story: Crayton Harrison in New York at tharrison5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net Drew Armstrong
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