Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) was one of the hot topics at this year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and a new CLL drug that caught my attention was the second-generation Bruton’s Tyrosine Kinase (BTK) inhibitor ONO-4059 from Ono Pharmaceuticals.

Professor Gilles Salles (Lyon, France) presented promising efficacy data from a phase 1 study of ONO-4059 in relapsed/refractory CLL and high risk CLL (#676).

Unfortunately after his presentation, Prof Salles declined my request for a quick interview citing a prior commitment with a large pharma company and subsequently failed to turn up for an agreed interview the next day. Talking about ONO-4059, at least with the media, did not appear to be a priority!

However, as a potential competitor to other BTK inhibitors in development such as ibrutinib (Pharmacyclics/JNJ) and CC-292 (Celgene/Avila) it’s worthy of a mention in the conference coverage and a quick post about the data presented.

To learn more insights on this intriguing topic, subscribers can log-in or you can purchase access to BSB Premium Content. 

This content is restricted to subscribers

Posted by