New drug for leukemia sufferers

Authorization for drug in leukemia

09/17/2014

There is good news for leukemia patients as Gazyvaro (obinutuzumab), a drug developed by the Roche Group, has now also been approved for the European market. Lymphocytic leukemia is the most common form of blood cancer.

Through an innovative therapy, the doctors now hope to be able to combat this disease better and more targeted. 30 percent of all affected individuals suffer from CCL, as chronic lymphocytic leukemia is also abbreviated. This variation accounts for 30 percent of all leukemia cases and affects only adults. Especially the elderly are affected, as their immune system often does not work as well anymore.

New hope by antibodies from the laboratory
Against CLL, modern medicine has great hopes for new antibody therapy. The body's own antibodies play a very important role.

The proteins contained in the antibodies bind the toxins and viruses and make them harmless. Researchers have made these antibodies themselves and modified them so that they can be used in cancer medicine. These special proteins can mark the deadly tumor cells so that the body's own defense recognizes and combats cancer cells as a danger. Other antibodies can block the signaling pathways of tumor cells and thus prevent them from growing.

Currently, more than 30 applications for antibody therapy are being researched by science. Including the CLL type. The Management Board of Roche Pharma AG cites Dr. Hagen Pfunder on their group page: „With Gazyvaro, we have now succeeded in developing a superior antibody that will help patients even better. "The antibody Obinutuzumab was the ultimate breakthrough and is being developed in the drug Gazyvaro by the Roche group, which tested the medicine in this country Roche has offices in Berlin, Grenzach, Mannheim, Penzberg and Waiblingen, and has approximately 14,000 employees in the Group. Roche is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.

The key to obinutuzumab is that it stimulates the immune system to attack the cancer cells, but also directly causes the death of cancer cells.

In order to obtain the EMA (European Medicines Agency) approval, Roche, in collaboration with the German CLL Study Group (DCLLSG) at the University Hospital Cologne, conducted a clinical study with 781 CLL patients. These partly suffered from comorbidities.

„We are pleased that the European Commission has granted Europe-wide approval for Gazyvaro for the treatment of typical CLL patients with concomitant diseases. "Stefan Frings is quoted on www.roche.de Stefan Frings is the medical director of Roche Pharma AG. „With Gazyvaro, we can provide a meaningful therapeutic innovation as a new base for treating patients with this disease, "it continues.

Impressive results

According to director Michael Hallek of the Cologne clinic I for internal medicine, a long-term study shows that Gazyvaro extends the life of the tested CLL patients and patients.

Compared to conventionally used chemotherapy, the time to disease progression has nearly doubled. With ten times the amount of patients, the disease could no longer be detected using the finest analytical methods. The company said that obinutuzumab is well tolerated. However, side effects such as fever, nausea, chills and low blood pressure after the first infusion were well treated. Unknown side effects have not occurred so far. That gives hope to many to be treated. (Bn)