Juno able to resume leukemia drug trial, says FDA

13 July 2016
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The US Food and Drug Administration has removed the clinical hold on the Phase II clinical trial of JCAR015 in patients with relapsed or refractory B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (r/r ALL), the drug's developer Juno Therapeutics (Nasdaq: JUNO) has announced.

This update on Tuesday led shares in the USA-based biopharma company, which had dropped from a previous $40.82 by around 30% to $27.81 on last week’s news that the trial was being halted, to rise again by 26% to $35.05 in after-hours trading on Tuesday, though they had dipped again slightly to $32.44 in Wednesday morning's trading.

The deaths of two patients led the trial to be stopped, but these were attributed to the addition of fludarabine to the pre-conditioning regimen. The Seattle-based company, which focuses on re-engaging the body’s immune system to improve the treatment of cancer, therefore proposed to the FDA that it would continue with the trial using JCAR015 with cyclophosphamide pre-conditioning alone.

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