18 June 2013 - 18 June 2013 - US AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV), a company formed earlier this year after separating from Abbott (NYSE:ABT), reported on Monday preliminary Phase I data for its BCL-2 (B-cell lymphoma 2) selective inhibitor ABT-199/GDC-0199 in patients with high-risk relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and in patients with relapsed/refractory non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL).

The company noted that high-risk CLL patients are those with deletions of chromosome 17p or whose disease is refractory to fludarabine therapy.

Professor Andrew Roberts, Hematologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and head of Clinical Translation at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia, commented that preliminary response rates seen in high-risk CLL patients appear similar to those observed in other CLL patients receiving ABT-199/GDC-0199. Professor Roberts said further that these findings justify further investigation of this compound in patients with 17p deletion and fludarabine-refractory CLL.

In the NHL arm, single-agent activity was seen and warrants further clinical evaluation, AbbVie said. Of the patients enrolled in this arm, eight (26%) had mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), an aggressive, rapidly progressive subtype of NHL that does not respond well to current therapies. Preliminary efficacy results showed that all eight patients (100%) with MCL achieved a partial response.

Findings were unveiled at the 18th Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA) in Stockholm, Sweden.