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Emapalumab (Gamifant)
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved emapalumab-lzsg (Gamifant®) to treat primary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH).
Emapalumab, an interferon gamma-blocking antibody, is approved to treat to treat patients of all ages (newborn and older) with primary HLH who have refractory, recurrent, or progressive disease or who cannot tolerate conventional HLH therapy.
Emapalumab is the first treatment to be FDA-approved for primary HLH, and it is expected to be available in the United States in the first quarter of 2019.
The FDA previously granted emapalumab priority review, breakthrough therapy designation, orphan drug designation, and rare pediatric disease designation.
The FDA’s approval of emapalumab is based on results from a phase 2/3 trial (NCT01818492).
The trial included 34 patients, 27 of whom had refractory, recurrent, or progressive disease or could not tolerate conventional HLH therapy.
Patients received emapalumab in combination with dexamethasone.
At the end of treatment, 63% (17/27) of patients had achieved a response, which was defined as complete response (n=7), partial response (n=8), or HLH improvement (n=2).
Seventy percent (n=19) of patients went on to hematopoietic stem cell transplant.
The most common adverse events were infections (56%), hypertension (41%), infusion-related reactions (27%), and pyrexia (24%).
Additional results from this study can be found in the prescribing information for emapalumab, which is available at www.gamifant.com.
Results are also scheduled to be presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting (abstract LBA-6).
Emapalumab was developed by Novimmune SA. Sobi acquired global rights to the drug in August 2018.