Tag Archive for: navitoclax

Advances in Myelofibrosis Research

/in , , , , , , , /by
Bookmark (0)

No account yet? Register

Advances in Myelofibrosis Research from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What are the recent developments in the study and advancement of myelofibrosis treatment? MPN researcher Dr. Gabriela Hobbs discusses ongoing clinical trials for new JAK inhibitors, BET inhibitors, and anemia therapies, among others.

Dr. Gabriela Hobbs is a hematology-oncology physician specializing in the care of patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), chronic myeloid leukemia, and leukemia. Dr. Hobbs serves as clinical director of the adult leukemia service at Massachusetts General Hospital. Learn more about Dr. Hobbs.

See More From MPN Clinical Trials 201

Related Programs:

Key Questions to Ask When Considering an MPN Clinical Trial

Key Questions to Ask When Considering an MPN Clinical Trial

 How MPN Researchers Collaborate to Advance Patient Care

How MPN Researchers Collaborate to Advance Patient Care

 What Are the Long-Term Effects of JAK Inhibitors

What Are the Long-Term Effects of JAK Inhibitors?

Transcript:

Katherine:

What about myelofibrosis, Dr. Hobbs? What advances are being made in the care of patients with this more advanced MPN? 

Dr. Hobbs:

Yeah. So, in myelofibrosis, I would say it is almost difficult to keep track of how many clinical trials are currently open. So, in 2011, we had ruxolitinib approved, or Jakafi. That was the first JAK inhibitor. Since then, we’ve had two more JAK inhibitors approved, fedratinib (Inrebic) and most recently pacritinib (Vonjo). And we’re currently awaiting the fourth JAK inhibitor to be approved, and that’s called momelotinib.   

And in addition to the JAK inhibitors, there are lots of other clinical trials underway right now that are either alone – a drug by itself or a drug in combination with ruxolitinib.  

So, there are several Phase III studies. And the reason why that’s important is that after Phase III we usually see a drug approval. So, we can expect, hopefully in the next couple of years, to see many more drugs available on the market to treat patients with myelofibrosis. Some of those include agents that block different pathways within a cell. And that includes a drug called parsaclisib. There’s a drug called pelabresib (CPI-0610), which is a BET inhibitor.  

There’s another drug called navitoclax (ABT-263), which is a cousin of venetoclax (Venclexta), which is a drug that we’ve been using a lot in leukemia. So, there’s lots of different drugs that are being used in combination with ruxolitinib. There’s also a drug called luspatercept (Reblozyl) that’s also been approved for myelodysplastic syndromes. And I suspect that that’ll be approved as well to help patients with anemia. So, really, there’s lots of drugs that are being studied right now. And I think the question that we’re all asking is, well, how are we going to use all of these different drugs? So, I look forward to seeing the results of those studies.  

Katherine:

Mm-hmm. Will some drugs work better for some patients and others not? 

Dr. Hobbs:

That is such a good question. And so, what I’m hoping to see is exactly that. I’m hoping to see that for patients, for example, with anemia, perhaps we’re going to be using luspatercept and momelotinib. Perhaps we’re going to see that patients with certain mutations may respond better to certain medications like the BET inhibitors or navitoclax or the PI3 kinase inhibitor, parsaclisib. But as of now, we don’t have enough information.  

We haven’t seen enough results of these studies to start to be able to know, you know, what is the patient that’s going to do better with two drugs versus one drug? And so, I think that over the next couple of years we’re going to start to have answers to those questions.  

Advice for Hesitant MPN Clinical Trial Participants

/in , , , , , , , /by
Bookmark (0)

No account yet? Register

Advice for Hesitant MPN Clinical Trial Participants from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What should MPN patients know about clinical trials? Dr. Claire Harrison from Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital in London shares information about the varying degrees of clinical trials and advice to those who are hesitant about clinical trials.

See More from Best MPN Care No Matter Where You Live

Related Resources:

New Developments in MPN Treatment Landscape

 What Are the Unmet Needs in Access to MPN Care?

 How Can MPN Patients Become More Proactive in Their Care?

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

It’s said that clinical trials are tomorrow’s medicine today, and you’ve already kind of alluded to the importance of clinical trials as it relates to MPN. What would you say to an MPN patient who is on the fence or may be concerned or afraid of participating in a clinical trial?

Dr. Claire Harrison: 

It’s right to be cautious and, you know, careful because ultimately it’s a huge privilege as a clinician that involves patients in clinical trials that my patients trust me and trust my team to look after them with something that is experimental, but remember there are varying degrees of experimental. Most clinical trials are not first in man, you’re not a complete guinea pig, it may be a drug, for example, navitoclax is in clinical trials mainly for myelofibrosis also ET and PV but that is a drug that has been used for thousands of patients, for another indication so talk to your healthcare team, if you don’t find the answer from the primary person that you’re used to dealing with, find someone else, be linked to somebody you trust and that you have a good relationship with, take someone with you to the consultation, write down the questions I’m so sure you say this all the time, don’t you Nicole to the people that you talk to, but write down your questions, don’t be afraid to ask them again, there is no stupid question in this context, you will be given a 30-plus page booklet to read, and I lost count of the number of times, my patients go, yeah, I’ve got this, or I trust you.

Actually, you know, you need to read it…we are experimenting on you, and you need to read that and understand. And you need to understand, what happens if I go on the control arm, will I be able to cross over? How many visits will I have, will I have to pay for those visits, etcetera. It’s all really important. But ultimately the relationship with your healthcare provider is important, and using an advocate is really important too.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

I agree 100 percent. So important, these are things that I talk about all the time, so I really appreciate that you highlighted that, and just the importance of patients taking an active role in their medical care and also the trust that is required between the patient and their treating providers. So I really appreciate that. Do you have any examples, Dr. Harrison, in your own practice of successes with MPN patients who have participated in clinical trials? 

Dr. Claire Harrison: 

Oh yes, I think I started doing clinical trials, well golly, a long time ago. I think my first clinical trial, probably the records were written parchment to be honest, but we’ve still learned a lot from that, so that was an ET study. It was from that study we understood about the JAK2 mutation, and we understood how patients behave differently. I think probably the most gratifying thing for me was being involved in the JAK inhibitor studies in myelofibrosis and being involved in delivering ruxolitinib and Jakafi to patients and seeing the benefits for those patients. 

Big things, you know, there are patients who are alive because they took part in that trial today, I think, but there are also patients for whom small things were also really important, so as a patient, that’s important to define what is the benefit you want to get. So one of my first patients, you haven’t been able to have a bath or a shower for years, because he had terrible what we call aquagenic pruritus, itching induced by contact with water, we called him two days after he started ruxolitinib (Jakafi), and he was in tears, he could take…or you can take it out.

These things are really important. Like myself, I can imagine not being able to dig it out, I would either be very tough for another patient, it was, well, I looked really skinny because I’d lost loads of weight and I put weight on, and body image was really important as well, but then the small things like being able to be…participate more in family activities is really, really important too. 

Notable New MPN Treatments

/in , , , , , /by
Bookmark (0)

No account yet? Register

Notable New MPN Treatments from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo. 

What’s the latest in myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) treatments? Dr. Kristen Pettit from Rogel Cancer Center gives updates about treatment developments for myelofibrosis, polycythemia vera (PV), and essential thrombocythemia (ET) care including JAK inhibitors, BCL-2 inhibitors, BCL-XL inhibitors, BET inhibitors, and others.

See More From the MPN TelemEDucation Resource Center

Related Resources:

What Is the Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Telemedicine for MPN

 What Is Next Generation Sequencing for MPNs?

 Are Mobile-Optimized Tools Impacting MPN Care?

Transcript:

Dr. Kristen Pettit:

There are so many new treatments in MPNs that I’m excited about, so one that is investigational that has been moving through the pipeline is momelotonib, which is a newer JAK inhibitor for patients with myelofibrosis. The mechanism of action is slightly different than the other JAK inhibitors, ruxolitinib (Jakafi), baricitinib (Olumiant), and pacritinib that’s improved as well.

The hope with momelotonib is that it will do some of the good things that the other JAK inhibitors do reduce symptoms and reduce spleen size, but also potentially improve anemia for patients who struggle with anemia, which is such a high proportion of our patients with myelofibrosis. I think that’s one exciting thing, another exciting avenue are new potential up-front treatment strategies that are being studied, so there are a number of different clinical trials going on right now, testing the strategy of either standard ruxolitinib or Jakafi by itself compared head-to-head versus a combination of Jakafi plus another medication.

Those other medications that are being tested in trials include the BET inhibitor called parsaclisib, also BCL-2, BCL-XL inhibitor called navitoclax, and a Pi3 Kinase inhibitor called parsaclisib. These upfront head-to-head treatment strategies are going to be very important to keep an eye out for over the next couple of years. The hope is that these combination strategies could deepen responses and potentially prolong responses when a new drug is combined with the JAK inhibitor as the first treatment option for patients with myelofibrosis. In the later line setting, one thing that’s exciting is Imetelstat, which is a telomerase inhibitor.

This is the first study in my myelofibrosis that is trying to specifically prove whether or not it is linked in survival for patients with myelofibrosis. So, I think that’s very exciting and something to keep an eye out for.

In polycythemia vera, one newer treatment option that’s getting a lot of excitement is the Hepcidin mimetic called rusfertide, this medication will hopefully harness the body’s iron metabolism pathway and act as sort of a chemical phlebotomy as opposed to an actual therapeutic phlebotomy in order to control the hemoglobin and hematocrit for patients with PV as well as improve symptoms.

In ET the newer agents that are being investigated include the BET inhibitor parsaclisib, is also being studied for myelofibrosis as well as an LSD-1 inhibitor called bomedemstat. Both of these look exciting so far, as far as their ability to both control platelet count and improve symptoms for patients with ET.

Promising ET, PV & Myelofibrosis Therapies in Development

/in , , , , , , , /by
Bookmark (0)

No account yet? Register

Promising ET, PV & Myelofibrosis Therapies in Development from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo. 

MPN specialist, Dr. Srdan Verstovsek discusses the latest research and progress for the treatment of patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET), polycythemia vera (PV) and myelofibrosis (MF).

Dr. Srdan Verstovsek is Chief of the Section for Myeloproliferative Neoplasms in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Learn more about Dr. Verstovsek, here.

See More From The Pro-Active MPN Patient Toolkit

Related Resources

 

An Expert Shares Key Steps to Take Following an MPN Diagnosis

  

MPN Treatment: Why Testing for Mutations Matters

  

What You Should Know About Progression in MPNs

Transcript:

Dr. Srdan Verstovsek

When we talk about the new therapies in development, there are many in myelofibrosis in particular, and a few are in essential thrombocythemia and polycythemia vera. Let’s start with ET and PV. Here we are expecting either studies, or possibly even approval, of a long-acting interferon called Ropeginterferon that was approved a year ago in Europe for PV patients.

We gonna have, hopefully here in the United States, that drug for our patients in a year or perhaps studies in PV, or perhaps most definitely, I would say, studies in ET with this drug. That would be enhancement of what we done off-label using interferons that are approved for some other conditions. We know that interferons are biological agents active in these conditions to control the bone marrow, and perhaps even decrease the number of malignant cells in the bone marrow of patients with ET and PV, which may be beneficial down the road.

In myelofibrosis, the picture is completely different. In this setting, the life expectancy, unfortunately, is affected as we discussed, and we need therapy that would be perhaps improving that life longevity. As we know, the ruxolitinib JAK inhibitor that has been around for nine years can extend the life a few years, but not cure people.

So, helping JAK inhibitors by combinations with other active agents that would be biologically modifying that bone marrow, decrease the tumor burden, improving the quality of life or anemia, are at forefront of what is happening right now. So, combinations with Navitoclax which is Bcl-xL cell inhibitor, CPI-0610, which is BET inhibitor, Luspatercept which is anemia drug.

These are phase three studies that are planned to start soon for possible approval for combinations over JAK inhibitor alone for different problems that people face.

Or, later on in the course of the disease, JAK inhibitor may fail. What do you do then? So, we have studies announced that will be done in what we call a second line, after-JAK inhibitor. And the MDM2 inhibitor was announced. Imetelstat inhibitor in the second line. Momelotinib JAK inhibitor in the second line. Fedratinib is being studied, another JAK inhibitor. Pacritinib for patients with low platelets

These are all phase three studies. That’s means for approval of this drug, so that will be three and four, seven different phase three for myelofibrosis patients with different clinical scenarios, different clinical problems are being done, or about to be done, in very near future. So, my prospect is here. My view on that is that we will have, hopefully, at least some of these seven studies leading to approval of some new drugs for our patients with myelofibrosis.