12 out of 13 patients receiving an experimental treatment for blood cancer from Kite Pharma (KITE) experienced a response to the treatment, the company said in an update on Monday, sending the stock up by as much as 40% in after hours trading. On Tuesday morning, the stock had slipped from $34 to $26 – still up 20% from Tuesday’s closing price – as investors realize the results aren’t as new as originally thought; investigators running the trial published similar results last year. Nevertheless, the 92% objective response rate is unprecedented with traditional therapies – the question is how well Kite will be able to manage a slate of adverse events seen with CAR T therapies.
Details were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
KTE-C19 is an anti-CD19 CAR T cell therapy (chimeric antigen receptor) that involves modifying a patient’s T cells to target CD19, a protein expressed on the cell surface of B cell lymphomas and leukemias.
In the study, being run by the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), 8 patients with B-cell malignancies experienced complete remission, and four others experienced a partial response. Of seven evaluable patients with chemotherapy-refractory DLBCL, four achieved complete remission, three with durations from 9 to 22 months.
The treatment was associated with significant toxicity, including fever, low blood pressure, focal neurological deficits, and delirium.
In June, Kite raised $134 million an initial public offering.
