On October 27, 2022 Biomea Fusion, Inc. ("Biomea")(Nasdaq: BMEA), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to discovering and developing novel covalent small molecules to treat and improve the lives of patients with genetically defined cancers and metabolic diseases, reported the dosing of the first patient in the CLL cohort of COVALENT-101, the company’s ongoing Phase I clinical trial evaluating BMF-219, Biomea’s investigational covalent menin inhibitor, in patients with R/R AML, ALL, DLBCL, MM, and now CLL (Press release, Biomea Fusion, OCT 27, 2022, View Source [SID1234622507]).
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"Despite the advances in the treatment of CLL, we know that the majority of patients relapse and are in need of a new, novel therapy," stated Thomas Butler, Biomea’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. "Based on the remarkable preclinical data we presented at ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper) of BMF-219’s effect in CLL models, including comparisons to currently available treatments, we believe BMF-219 could represent a transformative treatment option for CLL patients. With many of the Biomea Fusion team members having a long history and involvement with the successful development of CLL agents, and ibrutinib in particular, it’s quite special to be able to now evaluate the clinical potential of BMF-219 for those CLL patients that are still in need of a therapy."
At ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper), Biomea presented data demonstrating BMF-219’s powerful cell-killing activity as a novel, first-in-class single agent against CLL patient samples, representing a broad spectrum of mutational profiles, including those with poor prognostic mutations, such as TP53 and NOTCH1, chromosomal aberrations such as del(13q), trisomy 12 and complex karyotype. BMF-219 demonstrated near 100% response even in samples resistant to multiple standard-of-care agents.
"I am very proud of our research and translational team’s ability to further elucidate the central role of the scaffold protein menin and identify a host of specific subsets across various cancers where BMF-219 is achieving robust preclinical results. We are very excited to continue to advance this new therapeutic approach for patients with multiple liquid and solid tumors, many of whom have very little remaining alternatives," concluded Thomas Butler.
Biomea’s preclinical presentations on CLL can be accessed at the following link: View Source
About COVALENT-101
COVALENT-101 is a Phase I, open-label, multi-center, dose escalation and dose expansion study originally designed to assess the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of oral dosing of BMF-219 in patients with R/R acute leukemias —including subpopulations where menin inhibition is expected to provide maximal therapeutic benefit (e.g., patients with MLL1/KMT2A gene rearrangements or NPM1 mutations), multiple myeloma (MM) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The study design has now been expanded to include a cohort for patients with R/R CLL. Additional information about the Phase I clinical trial of BMF-219 can be found at ClinicalTrials.gov using the identifier NCT05153330.
About Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
CLL is a chronic leukemia that progresses relatively slowly and typically impacts older adults. In the United States, approximately 20,000 patients are diagnosed with CLL each year. While the existing treatment options produce 5-year survival outcomes greater than 87%, there is an unmet need for patients that have high- or medium-risk cytogenetic profiles and those who have relapsed or were refractory to existing treatments.