ASH 2021: Positive pivotal data for novel cancer immunotherapy mosunetuzumab

Swiss pharma giant Roche (ROG: SIX) has presented new pivotal data on its CD20xCD3 T-cell engaging bispecific antibody, mosunetuzumab, for the first time at the 63rd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition 2021.

Emerging data continue to show the promising benefit-risk profile of mosunetuzumab in relapsed or refractory (R/R) follicular lymphoma (FL), a slow-growing, or indolent, form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Pivotal results from the phase I/II GO29781 study demonstrated that mosunetuzumab induces durable complete responses lasting at least 18 months in heavily pre-treated patients with R/R FL who have received two or more prior therapies, with a 60.0% complete response (CR) rate and a median progression-free survival of 17.9 months (95% CI: 10.1-not evaluable). Median duration of response was 22.8 months among responders (95% CI: 9.7-not evaluable). The most common adverse event (AE) was cytokine release syndrome (CRS), which was generally low grade (mainly Grade 1-2).

“Despite initial successful treatment, many people with follicular lymphoma often experience relapse. Mosunetuzumab could potentially become a highly efficacious treatment option that can be administered without the need for cell collection or genetic engineering,” said Dr Levi Garraway, Roche’s chief medical officer and head of global product development. “With mosunetuzumab, we also aim to offer a therapy that can be administered in the outpatient setting to people with this devastating blood cancer,” he noted.