Skip to main content
An official website of the United States government
Español
Email

Approval Expanded for Venetoclax in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

, by NCI Staff

Credit: iStock

The targeted therapy venetoclax (Venclexta) can now be used for a broader group of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Venetoclax was initially approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2016 to treat people with CLL that has a specific genomic alteration, called deletion 17p. On June 8, the agency expanded the drug’s approval to include people with CLL whose cancer has progressed after receiving at least one previous treatment, regardless of whether their cancer cells have this genetic alteration.

This new approval was based on the results of a large clinical trial called MURANO, which was funded by the companies that manufacture and distribute venetoclax, AbbVie and Roche.

In the trial, patients treated with venetoclax in combination with rituximab (Rituxan) lived longer without their cancer progressing than patients who were treated with rituximab and bendamustine (Treanda). The improvement in progression-free survival was seen regardless of whether patients’ cancers had the 17p deletion.

Further details on the findings from the MURANO trial and how this expanded approval of venetoclax should affect the care of patients with CLL were reported earlier this year in Cancer Currents.

< Older Post

Do Frequent Follow-Up Tests Benefit Colorectal Cancer Survivors?

Newer Post >

New on NCI Websites for June 2018

If you would like to reproduce some or all of this content, see Reuse of NCI Information for guidance about copyright and permissions. In the case of permitted digital reproduction, please credit the National Cancer Institute as the source and link to the original NCI product using the original product's title; e.g., “Approval Expanded for Venetoclax in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia was originally published by the National Cancer Institute.”

Email