Cephalon's Treanda gets good results in Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma trial

International biopharmaceutical company, Cephalon Oncology, headquartered in Frazer, Pennsylvania, has reported a good response to an international multi-centre clinical trial of Treanda - a novel hybrid cytotoxic alkylating for treating non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL).

In a Phase 2 study of patients with advanced NHL who were previously exposed to multiple courses of therapy, 74% responded to Treanda (bendamustine HCl), including 35% with a complete response. All study participants had progressive disease after prior treatment with the antibody therapy rituximab (Rituxan); a subgroup also had not responded to traditional alkylating agents. Rituximab and alkylators are commonly prescribed to treat NHL.

Treanda differs from conventional compounds in its apparent multi-functional mechanism of action. In addition to killing cells by damaging their DNA and triggering a self-destruct signal known as apoptosis, researchers have demonstrated Treanda also causes mitotic catastrophe, or the disruption of cell division.

'It's unusual to see this kind of response in patients so far along in the course of the disease, especially since they previously did not respond to other alkylators and were relapsed from rituximab,' said principal investigator Jonathan Friedberg, associate director of lymphoma clinical research at the University of Rochester Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester, New York. 'None of the available therapies for NHL are curative, so every patient will eventually require new therapeutic interventions. These data suggest bendamustine might prove to be such an alternative.'

A Phase 3 trial of Treanda in indolent NHL refractory to rituximab is ongoing at sites in the US and Canada.