On March 8, 2022 Genmab A/S (Nasdaq: GMAB) reported that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan-drug designation to the investigational medicine, epcoritamab (DuoBody-CD3xCD20), for the treatment of follicular lymphoma (FL) (Press release, Genmab, MAR 8, 2022, View Source [SID1234609681]). Epcoritamab is being co-developed by Genmab and AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV).

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Orphan drug status is designated by the FDA to medicines and biologics that are defined as those intended for the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of a rare disease or condition affecting less than 200,000 people in the U.S.i

Approximately 2.7 per 100,000 people in the U.S. are newly diagnosed with follicular lymphoma (FL)ii every year and the median age of patients at diagnoses with FL is 63.iii,iv,v FL is typically a slow-growing or indolent form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) that arises from B-lymphocytes.vi Although FL is an indolent lymphoma, patients who relapse or become refractory are incurable with conventional therapy and there is a need for additional treatment options.vii,viii Globally, FL is the second most common form of NHL, accounting for approximately 25 percent of adult NHL.ix

"This orphan drug designation is an important milestone for epcoritamab," said Jan van de Winkel, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Genmab. "With AbbVie, we remain committed to further developing epcoritamab in this patient population, as well as in patients diagnosed with other B-cell hematologic malignancies."

Epcoritamab is currently being evaluated as a treatment option for patients with FL in several clinical trials, including the phase 1/2 EPCORE NHL-1 evaluating the efficacy and safety of subcutaneous epcoritamab in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (B-NHL), including diffuse large B-cell Lymphoma (DLCBL), follicular lymphoma (FL), and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) (NCT: 03625037). Additional trials evaluating epcoritamab in patients with FL include a phase 1b/2, open-label, multinational, interventional trial to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of epcoritamab in combination with other standard of care (SOC) agents across different lines of therapy in patients with DLBCL or FL (NCT: 04663347) and a phase 1/2 trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of epcoritamab in Japanese patients with relapsed/refractory B-NHL (NCT: 04542824).

About Epcoritamab
Epcoritamab is an investigational IgG1-bispecific antibody created using Genmab’s proprietary DuoBody technology. Genmab’s DuoBody-CD3 technology is designed to direct cytotoxic T cells selectively to tumors to elicit an immune response towards malignant cells. Epcoritamab is designed to simultaneously bind to CD3 on T cells and CD20 on B cells and induces T cell mediated killing of lymphoma B cells.x CD20 is a clinically validated therapeutic target, and is expressed on many B-cell malignancies, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.xi,xii Epcoritamab is an investigational medicine not currently approved by the FDA. Epcoritamab is being co-developed by Genmab and AbbVie as part of the companies’ broad oncology collaboration.