Jan 5 (Reuters) – Incyte said on Monday its experimental combo therapy helped patients live longer without their disease worsening in a late-stage study of a type of blood cancer, sending its shares up about 3% in premarket trading.
The trial tested adding tafasitamab and lenalidomide to R-CHOP, a standard chemotherapy regimen, in about 900 adults newly diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, or DLBCL, an aggressive form of cancer.
The regimen is being studied as an initial therapy for high-risk patients with the disease.
The study met its main goal of progression-free survival, showing patients on the combination therapy lived longer without their disease worsening, compared with the standard treatment alone.
DLBCL is the most common type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in adults worldwide, accounting for about 40% of cases. About 24,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with the disease each year, according to the company.
Standard treatment for the disease includes R-CHOP, while there are newer approved options such as polatuzumab-based combinations and CAR-T cell therapies for patients whose cancer returns or does not respond to initial treatment.
Tafasitamab, sold as Monjuvi in the U.S., is already approved with lenalidomide for patients whose disease has returned or did not respond to earlier treatment and who are not eligible for stem cell transplant.
Incyte said it plans to seek expanded U.S. approval for the treatment in the first half of 2026 as a first-line treatment for newly diagnosed patients.
(Reporting by Kamal Choudhury in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Shreya Biswas)
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