Bluebird, Celgene jump off to a promising start in the marathon race to develop a CAR-T for multiple myeloma
The clinical race to develop a relatively safe BCMA-targeting CAR-T for multiple myeloma is underway, and it’s starting with a preliminary Polaroid after the first few promising paces out of the gate for a handful of patients treated with bb2121 by bluebird bio $BLUE.
The biotech, partnered with myeloma powerhouse Celgene $CELG, offered up a clearly positive early snapshot showing that 7 of 9 evaluable patients responded to the therapy, with two complete responses, one nearly complete response and four partial responses indicating that more than half of their targeted precancerous cells had been eliminated. And in a field that has managed to raise repeated red flags on safety, bluebird was clearly chuffed that investigators so far had seen none of the damaging side effects that has plagued the CAR-T field from its earliest days.
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