Interim Data of Cirmtuzumab and Ibrutinib Show Efficacy in MCL and CLL

Hun Ju Lee, MD, an associate professor of medicine in the Department of Lymphoma & Myeloma and the Jessica and Jeffrey Brue Endowed Professor of Lymphoma Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the clinical activity of cirmtuzumab (UC-961), an anti-ROR1 antibody, in combination with ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in a phase 1b/2 study (NCT03088878) of patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) or chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

There are many ways to treat MCL, but these treatments also have a lot of toxicity for patients. Lee says that data with this combination are exciting because his patients did not have much toxicity.

In the CLL group, there was a high rate of response, but the remission rates were not as robust as they were in the MCL group, according to Lee. The patients with CLL in this study are on the part 2 expansion phase for this regimen. These patients are being enrolled much faster than the MCL group because CLL is the most common lymphoid malignancy in North America, so there are more of the patients available for this trial. The investigators are hoping that there will be more enrollment of patients with MCL to continue finding data in this setting.

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