Synribo given FDA green light for CML

WASHINGTON DC -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Synribo (omacetaxine mepesuccinate) to treat adults with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a blood and bone marrow disease.

An estimated 5,430 people will be diagnosed with CML in 2012, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Synribo is intended to be used in patients whose cancer progressed after treatment with at least two drugs from a class called tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), also used to treat CML.

Synribo blocks certain proteins that promote the development of cancerous cells. It is injected just under the skin (subcutaneously) twice daily for 14 consecutive days over a 28-day cycle until white blood cell counts normalize (hematologic response). Synribo is then administered twice daily for seven consecutive days over a 28-day cycle as long as patients continue to clinically benefit from therapy.

“Today’s approval provides a new treatment option for patients who are resistant to or cannot tolerate other FDA-approved drugs for chronic or accelerated phases of CML,” said Richard Pazdur, M.D., director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Synribo is the second drug approved to treat CML in the past two months.”

Earlier this year, the FDA approved Bosulif (bosutinib) to treat patients with chronic, accelerated or blast phase Philadelphia chromosome positive CML who are resistant to or who cannot tolerate other therapies.

Synribo is approved under the FDA’s accelerated approval program, which allows the agency to approve a drug to treat a serious disease based on clinical data showing that the drug has an effect on a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict a clinical benefit to patients. This program provides earlier patient access to promising new drugs while the company conducts additional clinical studies to confirm the drug’s clinical benefit and safe use. Synribo also received orphan-product designation by the FDA because it is intended to treat a rare disease or condition.

The effectiveness of Synribo was evaluated using a combined cohort of patients whose cancer progressed after previous treatment with two or more TKIs. All participants were treated with Synribo.

The drug’s effectiveness in chronic phase CML was demonstrated by a reduction in the percentage of cells expressing the Philadelphia chromosome genetic mutation found in most CML patients. Fourteen out of 76 patients (18.4 percent) achieved a reduction in an average time of 3.5 months. The median length of the reduction was 12.5 months.

In accelerated phase CML, Synribo’s effectiveness was determined by the number of patients who experienced a normalizatiNew Balance Mens Shoes