Boehringer Ingelheim links with Philogen on novel AML treatments

German family-owned pharma major Boehringer Ingelheim and Swiss-Italian biotech firm Philogen plan to collaborate on investigating novel treatment approaches for acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

As part of the collaborative effort, the partners have agreed on an exploratory trial investigating novel immunotherapy concepts for relapsed AML patients. Boehringer already has a potential treatment for AML – volasertib - in Phase III development, and the drug has received Breakthrough Therapy designation in the USA, as well as Orphan designation in the USA and Europe (The Pharma Letter April 17, 2014).

Despite being a rare disease, AML is one of the most common types of leukemia in adults, accounting for approximately one third of all adult leukemias in the Western world. There is a particularly high medical need in AML, as it has one of the lowest survival rates of all leukemias. It predominantly occurs in older adults; the average age of newly diagnosed patients is 65 years and the prognosis worsens with increasing age, with a median survival of six months or less following diagnosis in older patients.