Roche reveals new bispecific antibody data in blood cancers

Swiss pharma company Roche has revealed positive early data for its investigational bispecific antibodies mosunetuzumab, glofitamab and cevostamab in a range of blood cancer types.

The data, presented at the annual American Society of Haematology (ASH) meeting, demonstrated encouraging activity across a number of blood cancers.

Roche’s investigational bispecific antibody candidates are designed to bind to two different targets on two different cells at the same time.

This includes binding to a target on the surface of cancer cells and one on the surface of immune cells (T cells), simultaneously.

The ‘dual targeting approach’ enables the bispecific antibodies to activate existing T cells, which in turn allows these cells to engage and eliminate target cancer cells.

This approach could become an ‘innovative’ way to treat a number of blood cancers including non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and multiple myeloma (MM), Roche said in a statement.

The latest results, from the phase I/Ib GO29781 study in relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma (R/R NHL) show that 51.6% of patients achieved a complete response following mosunetuzumab treatment.

New data from another study, the phase I/Ib NP30179 study in R/R NHL, also demonstrate a 53.6% complete response rate in aggressive NHL following treatment with glofitamab.

In earlier treatment lines, including first-line diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), initial data with mosunetuzumab in the phase I/II GO40554 study demonstrated a complete response rate of 45.5% in elderly or unfit patients, who were unable to tolerate full-dose immunotherapy.

“The data suggest that our novel bispecific antibodies have potential across multiple types of blood cancers, and supports broad exploration of these new immunotherapy approaches across different patient populations and treatment lines,” said Levi Garraway, chief medical officer and head of global product development, Roche.

“Lymphoma and multiple myeloma are challenging cancers to treat, especially when patients present with aggressive subtypes or experience multiple relapses, but ‘off-the-shelf’ therapies like these could provide new options that may potentially enable patients to be treated quickly,” he added.