Portola Pharma Presents News Phase IIa Study Of Cerdulatinib

(RTTNews) - Portola Pharmaceuticals (PTLA) presented new interim results from the company's ongoing phase IIa study of investigational drug cerdulatinib in heavily pre-treated T-Cell malignancies at the 61st annual meeting of American Society of Hematology (ASH) in Orlando on Sunday.

cerdulatinib, an oral SYK/JAK inhibitor, is being investigated in patients with specific subtypes of T-cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, including relapsed/refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL); angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL), a subset of PTCL; and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL).

Cerdulatinib showed good tolerability in both PTCL and CTCL patients. Rapid improvements in pruritus, or severe itching, a common and often serious condition associated with CTCL, have also been observed as measured by the Likert scale.

In the study 64 PTCL patients and 40 CTCL patients were treated with cerdulatinib. The overall response rate (ORR), as of November 12, 2019, was 34% in the PTCL cohort and 43% in the CTCL cohort. Among the subset of patients in the PTCL cohort with AITL, the ORR was 52% and the complete response rate (CR) was 37%.

Among the 64 patients in the PTCL cohort, 14 patients (22%) achieved a CR and eight patients (12%) achieved a partial response (PR). In the subgroup of 27 patients with AITL, 10 patients (37%) achieved a CR, and four patients (15%) achieved a PR.

Among the 40 patients in the CTCL cohort, three patients (8%) achieved a CR and 14 patients (35%) achieved a PR.

The median duration of response is eight months for PTCL patients and more than nine months in AITL patients. Follow-up study is ongoing.

PTLA closed Friday's trading at 29.21, up 3.03%.