Bristol-Myers, Pharmacyclics And Janssen Collaborate On OPDIVO And IMBRUVICA

(RTTNews) - Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMY), Pharmacyclics Inc. (PCYC), and Janssen Research & Development, LLC announced they reached a clinical trial collaboration agreement to evaluate the safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of Bristol-Myers Squibb's investigational PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor OPDIVO pr nivolumab in combination with IMBRUVICA or ibrutinib, an oral Bruton's tyrosine kinase or BTK inhibitor co-developed and co-marketed by Pharmacyclics and Janssen.

The Phase 1/2 study will focus on evaluating the safety and anti-tumor activity of combining OPDIVO and IMBRUVICA as a potential treatment option for patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma or NHL, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma or DLBCL, follicular lymphoma or FL and chronic lymphocytic leukemia or CLL.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has proposed the name OPDIVO, which if approved by health authorities, will serve as the trademark for the investigational drug, nivolumab.

OPDIVO is part of a new class of cancer treatments known as immunotherapies, which are designed to harness the body's own immune system in fighting cancer by targeting distinct regulatory components of the immune system. Each agent has individually shown activity against hematologic malignancies in clinical trials; pre-clinical evidence suggests OPDIVO and IMBRUVICA may have the potential for additive treatment effects in patients with hematologic malignancies.

The study will be conducted by Janssen. Additional details of the collaboration were not disclosed.