Immunomedics reports Anti-CD20 safe, active for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

New York, Dec. 12 - Immunomedics, Inc. said initial response and safety results from its humanized anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma showed the drug appears to be safe and effective.

Of the 23 patients assessed, 14 or 61% had a response including six or 26% with a complete response.

Complete responses were seen at all dose levels.

In total 34 adult patients with documented CD20-positive B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were enrolled and infused once weekly for four weeks consecutively with 120, 200, 375, or 750 mg/m(2) of hA20.

The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Hematological Society in Atlanta by Franck Morschhauser of the Centre Hospitalier Regional Universitaire de Lille in Lille, France, as lead investigator of the open-label, multi-center, phase 1/2, dose-escalation study.

"We are very encouraged by these preliminary results and are particularly enthused by the high proportion of complete responses in patients who received 120 mg/m2 of hA20, the lowest dose used in the trial," said Cynthia L. Sullivan, president and chief executive officer of Immunomedics, in a news release.

"More importantly, a complete response rate of 43% (3/7) was observed in a small group of patients who had two to four prior treatments with rituximab."

Thirty-three patients received all four infusions with one rituximab-sensitive patient discontinuing treatment after developing allergic reactions at first infusion. Other than mild to moderate transient infusion reactions, predominantly with the first infusion, no significant toxicity was reported.

Immunomedics is a Morris Plains, N.J., biopharmaceutical company.

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