August 2019, Vol 10, No 4 | Payers’ Perspectives In Oncology: ASCO

On June 27, 2019, the FDA approved daratumumab (Darzalex; Janssen) in combination with lenalidomide (Revlimid; Celgene) and dexamethasone for the first-line treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who are ineligible for autologous stem-cell transplantation (ASCT). This approval was granted a priority review and used the Oncology Center of Excellence Real-Time Oncology Review program. This is the sixth indication for daratumumab in multiple myeloma and the second indication for newly diagnosed patients.
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On July 3, 2019, the FDA granted accelerated approval to selinexor (Xpovio; Karyopharm Therapeutics), a nuclear export inhibitor, in combination with dexamethasone, for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received ≥4 previous therapies and did not respond to other forms of treatment, including ≥2 proteasome inhibitors, ≥2 immunomodulatory agents, and an anti-­CD38 monoclonal antibody. The FDA reviewed selinexor using its fast track program, and granted it an orphan drug designation.
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Chicago, IL—Patients with metastatic urothelial cancer receive first-line treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy and second-line treatment with a checkpoint inhibitor. There is currently no approved third-line therapy for this malignancy. The investigational antibody-drug conjugate enfortumab vedotin may be a good choice for third-line therapy, based on the results of a phase 2 clinical trial presented at ASCO 2019.
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Chicago, IL—ONC201, a small-molecule DRD2 antagonist, results in durable tumor regression in adults with recurrent high-grade H3-K27M gliomas, reported lead investigator Isabel Arrillaga-Romany, MD, PhD, Associate Clinical Director, Neuro-Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, at ASCO 2019.
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Chicago, IL—A mesothelin-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy demonstrated encouraging antitumor activity in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with mesothelin-associated malignant pleural solid tumors, primarily mesothelioma, who had disease progression after platinum-containing chemotherapy, according to results presented at ASCO 2019.
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Chicago, IL—Gilteritinib (Xospata), a recently approved FLT3 inhibitor, prolonged survival in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and an FLT3 mutation in the phase 3 ADMIRAL clinical trial. A new analysis presented at ASCO 2019 was focused on the impact of baseline co-mutations and FLT3-ITD allelic burden on overall response and on overall survival (OS) in patients with relapsed or refractory AML who received treatment with gilteritinib.
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Chicago, IL—In the phase 3 CLL14 trial, fixed-duration therapy with the combination of venetoclax (Venclexta) plus obinutuzumab (Gazyva) was superior to the combination of chemotherapy with chlorambucil plus obinutuzu­mab as front-line therapy in older patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and comorbidities. Kirsten Fischer, MD, Center for Integrated Oncology Cologne-Bonn, University Hospital, Germany, presented the study results at ASCO 2019 and were published simultaneously (Fischer K, et al. N Engl J Med. 2019;380:2225-2236).
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Chicago, IL—The addition of the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)4/CDK6 inhibitor ribociclib (Kisqali) to standard endocrine therapy significantly extended overall survival (OS) compared with endocrine therapy alone in premenopausal women with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer, according to results of the phase 3 MONALEESA-7 clinical trial presented at ASCO 2019.
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Chicago, IL—Maintenance therapy with the targeted drug olaparib (Lynparza) after first-line platinum-based chemotherapy prolonged progression-­free survival (PFS) in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer and a germ­line BRCA mutation, according to results of the phase 3 POLO clinical trial presented at the plenary session at ASCO 2019. Lead investigator Hedy L. Kindler, MD, FASCO, Medical Director, Gastrointestinal Oncology, University of Chicago Medicine, IL, presented the results.
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Chicago, IL—Approximately 25% of children, adolescents, and young adults with advanced cancer were eligible for a targeted therapy after genotyping of their tumors in the Pediatric Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (MATCH) clinical trial. That rate is more than double the 10% that researchers had projected.
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