Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is usually a disease of the elderly and an area of high unmet medical need, especially in those who unfortunately relapse post stem cell transplantation (SCT) or are considered ineligible for a transplant. In some ways, it has languished in the graveyard of R&D with very few new therapies approved by the FDA or EMA over the last decade. In fact, it has been quite the opposite with Pfizer’s gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg), an anti-CD33 antibody drug conjugate (ADC) approved and subsequently withdrawn from the US marketplace following lack of confirmatory phase III data.

The list of agents, targeted and and cytotoxics, that have been evaluated and found wanting in the elderly AML setting is very long. These patients are usually considered ineligible for transplant and rather challenging to treat given the concomittant co-morbidities and often frail performance status often exclude them from drug clinical trials also. A number of phase II trials have also generated promising efficacy data, only to fall short in larger randomised studies.

There are now a new raft of compounds in development, quite a few with data at ASCO or EHA, making it a suitable time for an update of the AML landscape.

Companies mentioned: Karyopharm, Astellas, Ambit, Arog, Sunesis, Celgene, Novartis, Genentech, Agios
Compounds mentioned: selinexor, ASP2215, crenolanib, quizartinib, trebananib, vosaroxin, Vidaza, midostaurin, ABT-199, GDC-0199, AG–221, TIM3.

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