The section below shows quick review of some of the important drugs in hematology and essential info about their approval and use. Click on buttons below to read more.
| 1/04/2022: FDA approved axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta, Kite Pharma, Inc.) for adult patients with large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) that is refractory to first-line chemoimmunotherapy or relapses within 12 months of first-line chemoimmunotherapy. It is not indicated for the treatment of patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma. Approval was based on ZUMA-7 trial. |
| 29/10/2021: FDA granted accelerated approval to asciminib (Scemblix, Novartis AG) for patients with Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia (Ph+ CML) in chronic phase (CP), previously treated with two or more tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), and approved asciminib for adult patients with Ph+ CML in CP with the T315I mutation. |
| 1/10/2021: FDA approved brexucabtagene autoleucel for adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell ALL. Efficacy was evaluated in ZUMA-3 (NCT02614066), a single-arm multicenter trial that evaluated brexucabtagene autoleucel, a CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, in adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor ALL. |
| 14/9/2021: FDA granted accelerated approval to zanubrutinib for adult patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma (MZL) who have received at least one anti-CD20-based regimen. |
| 1/9/2021: FDA approved zanubrutinib for adult patients with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia (WM). Zanubrutinib was investigated in ASPEN (NCT03053440), a randomized, active control, open-label trial, comparing zanubrutinib and ibrutinib in patients with MYD88 L265P mutation (MYD88MUT) WM. |
| 16/6/2021: FDA approved avapritinib for adult patients with advanced systemic mastocytosis (AdvSM), including patients with aggressive systemic mastocytosis (ASM), systemic mastocytosis with an associated hematological neoplasm (SM-AHN), and mast cell leukemia (MCL). |
| 15/12/2021: FDA approved abatacept for the prophylaxis of acute graft versus host disease (aGVHD), in combination with a calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) and methotrexate (MTX), in adults and pediatric patients 2 years of age and older undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) from a matched or 1 allele-mismatched unrelated donor. This is the first drug approved to prevent aGVHD. Approval was based on GVHD-1 (NCT 01743131) trial. |
| 23/11/2021: FDA approved maribavir as the first drug for treating adults and pediatric patients (12 years of age and older and weighing at least 35 kilograms) with post-transplant cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection/disease that does not respond (with or without genetic mutations that cause resistance) to available antiviral treatment for CMV. |
| 22/9/2021: FDA approved ruxolitinib for chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) after failure of one or two lines of systemic therapy in adult and pediatric patients 12 years and older. Efficacy was evaluated in REACH-3, a randomized, open-label, multicenter clinical trial of ruxolitinib compared to best available therapy (BAT) for corticosteroid-refractory cGVHD after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. (Read more about Ruxolitinib) |
| 16/7/2021: FDA approved belumosudil, a kinase inhibitor, for adult and pediatric patients 12 years and older with chronic graft-versus-host disease (chronic GVHD) after failure of at least two prior lines of systemic therapy. |