FDA Grants Breakthrough Therapy Designation to Quizartinib for Relapsed/Refractory FLT3-ITD AML
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to quizartinib, an investigational FLT3 inhibitor, for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed/refractory FLT3-ITD acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Breakthrough Therapy designation is designed to expedite the development and regulatory review of medicines that may demonstrate substantial benefit over currently approved treatments, in order to more quickly bring new treatment options to patients with serious diseases. Significant unmet medical need exists in relapsed/refractory AML, as available treatment options are limited and there are no approved targeted therapies for patients with relapsed/refractory FLT3-ITD AML.
The designation was granted based on the results of the pivotal phase III QuANTUM-R study of quizartinib, which were presented during the plenary program at the 23rd Congress of the European Hematology Association in June 2018. QuANTUM-R is the first randomized phase III study to show that an FLT3 inhibitor prolongs overall survival as an oral single agent compared to chemotherapy in patients with relapsed/refractory FLT3-ITD AML.
The safety profile observed in QuANTUM-R appears consistent with that observed at similar doses in the quizartinib clinical development program. Incidence of treatment-emergent adverse events was comparable between patients who received single agent quizartinib (n = 241) and those who received salvage chemotherapy (n = 94). The most common adverse events (> 30%, any grade) in patients treated with quizartinib included nausea, thrombocytopenia, fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, pyrexia, anemia, neutropenia, febrile neutropenia, vomiting, and hypokalemia.
More About Quizartinib
In addition to Breakthrough Therapy designation, quizartinib has been granted Fast Track status by the FDA for the treatment of relapsed/refractory AML. Quizartinib also has been granted Orphan Drug designation by both the FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the treatment of AML.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
