Jakubowiak Talks CAR T-Cell Therapy in Heavily Pretreated Myeloma at 2021 ASH

In an interview with CancerNetwork^® at the 63rd American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition, Andrzej Jakubowiak, MD, PhD, director of the Myeloma Program at University of Chicago Medicine, discussed his research regarding ciltacabtagene autoleucel (cilta-cel) in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. He explained his team’s rationale for performing response evaluation in patient subgroups of the phase 1/2b CARTITUDE-1 trial (NCT03548207).

Transcript:

Cilta-cel [data have already been] published and presented with outstanding results in all patients enrolled with over [90% response rate] in the phase 1 and 2 portions of the study. [They] are still showing complete responses in 82% at the most recent update, but there was an interest in whether those responses are the same across all the subgroups involved in this study. That was the main purpose of this analysis.

The study enrolled patients who have failed previous standard-of-care therapy. All the patients enrolled in the studies were refractory to their last regimen. They were all exposed to previously regimens including proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory drugs, and a CD38 antibody like daratumumab [Darzalex] and were required to have 3 or more lines of therapy. This is the group of patients which are having typically, on average, somewhere between 20% to 30% of responses [across] all approved drugs for this patient population. Duration of response and progression-free survival reported for most of the study for this segment of population is in the range of approximately 3 to 4 months. It’s tough to successfully treat this patient population and clearly an unmet need and in this context. CAR T-cell therapy, which has emerged as a new modality with high potential efficacy, is explored and is evaluated in a number of studies, including the one with cilta-cel and CARTITUDE-1.

Reference

Jakubowiak A, Usmani SZ, Berdeja J, et al. Efficacy and safety of ciltacabtagene autoleucel in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma: CARTITUDE-1 subgroup analysis. Blood. 2021;138(suppl 1):3938. doi:10.1182/blood-2021-146069