Halt­ed in US by FDA hold, Bel­licum buoyed by some pos­i­tive num­bers from its Eu­ro­pean T cell study for pe­di­atric AML

Shares of Bel­licum Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals $BLCM got a bad­ly need­ed boost this morn­ing as the biotech — put in at least tem­po­rary lim­bo by an FDA hold on its lead T cell ther­a­py — plucked some en­cour­ag­ing da­ta from a Eu­ro­pean study for chil­dren with acute myeloid leukemia.

Among 38 pe­di­atric AML pa­tients treat­ed with BPX-501 fol­low­ing hap­loiden­ti­cal hematopoi­et­ic stem cell trans­plant, re­searchers tracked a me­di­an re­lapse-free rate of 91.5% and over­all sur­vival of 97.3% dur­ing a one-year fol­lowup in their BP-004 study in Eu­rope. There’s no con­trol group to com­pare against, but the be­lea­guered biotech point­ed to his­tor­i­cal rates of 60% to 80% fol­low­ing al­ter­nate-donor HSCT.

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