Biopharmaceutical company Micromet Inc. (Nasdaq: MITI) develops proprietary antibodies for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and autoimmune diseases, and bases its discoveries on its proprietary antibody platform, BiTE. Yesterday the company released first interim data from a phase 2 clinical trial of BiTE antibody blinatumomab for patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

The company presented the clinical results at the 50th annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology December 6 to 9 in San Francisco. The results showed that ALL patients with minimal residual disease (MRD) after chemotherapy have a “significantly worse prognosis” than those without MRD. In Micromet’s phase 2 clinical trials, blinatumomab for ALL patients with the BiTE antibody was able to eliminate MRD.

Micromet senior vice president and Chief Medical Officer Carsten Reinhardt, M.D. said the positive results may pave the way for advancements to combat ALL. “The level of response to blinatumomab in ALL patients observed in this trial combined with the unmet need for new therapies to treat this patient population may open the path towards an accelerated development in this indication,” Dr. Reinhardt stated.

Professor D. Hoelzer, chairman of the German Multicenter Study Group for Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (GMALL), said the positive data may point toward the positive future of blinatumomab.

“Today patients with MRD-positive ALL after first line therapy have very few options for treatment, and a very high likelihood of relapse,” Hoelzer stated in the press release. “The ability to convert a patient’s MRD status from positive to negative could lead to better clinical outcomes. These data suggest that blinatumomab may hold the potential to be an effective consolidation therapy after prior incomplete response to chemotherapy or even targeted therapy.”

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