The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society said today that its expanding its Beat AML Master trial to include five investigational treatments for acute myeloid leukemia.
The trial, which launched in October last year, has enrolled 70 patients and has garnered support by Alexion Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:ALXN), Boehringer Ingelheim, Celgene (NSDQ:CELG) and Gilead Sciences (NSDQ:GILD), all of which are providing investigational AML treatments. The non-profit said that three more unnamed biopharmaceutical companies are expected to join the effort soon.
Patients will be matched with drugs based on their personal genetic biomarkers, in a nod towards a growing movement to incorporate precision medicine into clinical evaluations.
“As the world’s leading non-profit dedicated to fighting blood cancers, LLS is uniquely able to convene the key stakeholders in cancer research to make the Beat AML Master Trial possible,” LLS president & CEO Louis DeGennaro said in prepared remarks. “Working closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), renowned cancer researchers, medical centers and the pharmaceutical industry, we are seeking to change the way cancer research is conducted.”
The non-profit said it hopes to eventually enroll 500 patients and evaluate them for at least two years. They plan to assess if a personalized therapy based on genomics can be safely assigned to an AML patient.
Foundation Medicine is supplying its advanced genomic tech to find cancer-driving genomic mutations in newly-diagnosed AML patients, ages 60 and older, according to LLS. The entire process, from screening to identifying a treatment, takes seven days.
“LLS is a patients first organization, and cancer patients have waited too long for better treatments for AML,” DeGennaro added. “We are very grateful to those patients who have enrolled in the Beat AML Master Trial; the learnings and treatments resulting from this innovative trial will help tackle these diseases, by delivering the right drug to the right patient at the right time.”
The trial is also the first cancer clinical trial led by a non-profit, LLS touted.
