ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Seattle Genetics, Inc. (SGEN) today announced results from a phase I clinical trial of ADCETRIS (brentuximab vedotin) in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of newly diagnosed advanced stage Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients. The data were presented at the 54th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition being held December 8-11, 2012 in Atlanta, GA. ADCETRIS is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) directed to CD30, a defining marker of classical HL. ADCETRIS is currently not approved for use in the front-line treatment of HL.

In the phase I trial, newly diagnosed patients received ADCETRIS concomitantly with either ABVD (Adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine) or AVD, which removes bleomycin from the regimen. At the end of front-line therapy, 24 of 25 patients (96 percent) treated with ADCETRIS plus AVD and 21 of 22 (95 percent) patients treated with ADCETRIS plus ABVD had a complete remission. None of the patients treated in the ADCETRIS plus AVD cohort experienced pulmonary toxicity, compared with an expected rate of pulmonary toxicity caused by ABVD alone of 10-25 percent. The trial was designed to establish the safety profile and maximum tolerated dose when adding ADCETRIS to ABVD or AVD. Antitumor activity was assessed as a secondary endpoint.

"For over 30 years, the standard of care for front-line HL has been a chemotherapy regimen called ABVD that has demonstrated a complete remission rate of 70 to 80 percent and is associated with considerable life-threatening toxicities. There is a significant need to identify better treatment options for patients in the front-line HL setting, said Clay B. Siegall, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Seattle Genetics. "Our goal is to redefine front-line treatment of HL with the addition of ADCETRIS, and the encouraging results of this phase I trial clearly support this goal and provide rationale for the ongoing ADCETRIS phase III trial in this setting."

Front-line Therapy with Brentuximab Vedotin Combined with ABVD or AVD in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Advanced Stage Hodgkin Lymphoma (Abstract #798)

In this open-label, multicenter trial, cohorts of patients received an escalating dose of ADCETRIS (0.6 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg), 0.9 mg/kg, 1.2 mg/kg) every two weeks concomitantly with ABVD or a dose of 1.2 mg/kg every two weeks concomitantly with AVD.

Fifty-one patients were enrolled in the phase I study and 47 were evaluable for response at trial completion. The 47 evaluable patients included 25 in the ADCETRIS plus AVD cohort and 22 in the ADCETRIS plus ABVD cohorts. All patients were previously untreated and 45 percent had Stage IV HL. The median age of patients across all cohorts of the trial was 33 years. Key findings, which were highlighted in an oral presentation by Dr. Stephen Ansell, Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology, from the Mayo Clinic, included:

For decades researchers have strived to improve our front-line HL treatment strategy by enhancing the activity of traditional chemotherapy regimens while reducing the significant toxicities and long-term side effects of such regimens, said Stephen Ansell,M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology, Mayo Clinic. There is a significant need to identify better treatment options for patients in the front-line setting. With a complete response rate of 96 percent and a manageable safety profile, data from this trial support further evaluation of ADCETRIS administered concomitantly with AVD in previously untreated HL patients to potentially improve the current standard of care.

Seattle Genetics and Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company have initiated a phase III clinical trial in advanced stage front-line HL patients. The randomized trial is comparing progression-free survival in patients receiving ADCETRIS in combination with AVD to patients receiving ABVD alone. For more information about the trial visit http://www.seattlegenetics.com or http://www.clinicaltrials.gov.

About ADCETRIS

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Seattle Genetics Reports Data from Phase I Trial of ADCETRIS® (Brentuximab Vedotin) in Front-line Hodgkin Lymphoma at ...

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