Positive results for Imbruvica in extension study for CLL-Janssen Biotech

A 148-patient extension study of Imbruvica (ibrutinib) from Janssen Biotech, investigated both previously untreated CLL patients and those who had relapsed or stopped responding following prior therapies. With a median follow-up of more than 27 months of treatment, nearly all of the previously untreated, or treatment-naive, patients and almost three quarters of the relapsed and refractory patients had no evidence of the disease progressing.There was not an increase of infections or other late-term complications, suggesting that it is going to be a drug that patients can take for a continued, extended period of time without it being a detriment. Researchers had not yet been able to determine median progression-free survival - the point at which the disease begins to worsen for half the patients in a study. Among previously untreated patients, about 96 percent had not yet experienced disease progression, with just one of 31 patients in that group relapsing so far, researchers said. Typically expectation would be about 50 percent to see disease progression at two years.Of the 117 previously treated patients in the extension study, 21 had experienced disease progression and 11 had died within 30 days of receiving their last dose of the drug. That left more than 70 percent whose disease remained in check.