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FDA Grants PRTC's LYT-200 Orphan Drug Designation
FDA Grants PRTC's LYT-200 Orphan Drug Designation.
About this update from Puretech Health Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n13 March 2024\nPureTech Health plc\n \nPureTech Receives Orphan Drug Designation for LYT-200 in Acute Myeloid Leukemia\n \nLYT-200 is being advanced in hematological malignancies such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), and locally advanced/metastatic solid tumors, including head and neck cancers \n \nPhase 1b clinical trial evaluating LYT-200 in relapsed/refractory AML and MDS patients is ongoing\n \nPureTech Health plc (Nasdaq: PRTC, LSE: PRTC) (\"PureTech\" or the \"Company\"), a clinical-stage biotherapeutics company dedicated to changing the lives of patients with devastating diseases, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation to LYT-200 for the treatment of AML.\n \n\"The current long-term survival rates of patients with relapsed or refractory AML are very poor, and there remains a tremendous unmet need for more effective therapies,\" said Amir Fathi, MD, Director of the Leukemia Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and lead investigator of the trial.\n \nLYT-200 is a fully human IgG4 monoclonal antibody (mAb) targeting galectin-9, a potent oncogenic driver in leukemia cells and an immunosuppressive protein. LYT-200 has demonstrated direct cytotoxic, anti-leukemic effects through multiple mechanisms and is being developed as a potential novel treatment for hematological malignancies, such as relapsed/refractory AML and high-risk MDS, as well as locally advanced/metastatic solid tumors that have poor survival rates, including head and neck cancers. LYT-200 is currently being evaluated in an ongoing Phase 1b clinical trial in relapsed/refractory AML and MDS, both as a single agent and in combination with standard-of-care venetoclax and hypomethylating agents (HMA). Initial findings from this trial were announced in 2023, and additional data are expected to be presented in a scientific forum in 2024.\n \n\"Orphan drug designation from the FDA validates our belief that targeting galectin-9 with LYT-200 is a novel, promising approach that may offer patients a better tolerated, more effective treatment,\" notes Aleksandra Filipovic, MD, PhD, Head of Oncology at PureTech.\n \nThe FDA grants orphan drug designation to novel drug and biologic products for the treatment, dia...