VIDEO: BTK inhibitors show potential in mantle cell lymphoma

Editor’s note: This is a previously posted video, and the below is an automatically generated transcript to be used for informational purposes. Please notify editor@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

Looking forward, for mantle cell lymphoma, there's an unmet need for patients who've been treated in the relapse setting with the traditional oral, what we call covalent BTK inhibitors. The ones we mentioned, Ibrutinib, Acalabrutinib and Zaubrutinib, all inhibit BTK by binding to the active site in a covalent fashion. Treatment resistance can develop to oral BTK inhibitors through a variety of mechanisms, including point mutations in that binding site and others. The new sort of class of agent that's in late stage clinical development is the class of non-covalent oral BTK inhibitors. Pirtobrutinib is the furthest along in that development and this agent is very well tolerated and has very high response rates and relative durability, even in patients with mantle cell lymphoma who've had extensive prior therapy including, with covalent BTK inhibitors. The other major class of agent, which is active and there's a significant amount of enthusiasm about is the class of drug called bispecific antibodies. Bispecifics are monoclonal antibodies that target CD 20 and engage T-cells to bring them in proximity of tumor target cells and illicit cytotoxicity. These agents are, again, very active. We've seen some updated data at the recent ASH meeting in 2022 that showed, again, high response rates, including complete remissions in heavily pretreated mantle cell lymphoma patients. Notable toxicities of this class of drug include the possibility of cytokine release syndrome, which is usually manageable, low grade and some potential in addition to cytokine release syndrome. There's also the potential for neurotoxicity which again, with these agents is not to the extent that we might see with CAR T-cell treatment but is still something to be aware of and needs to be managed proper for safe administration in the future.