ASH 2025 | Asciminib in patients with CML-CP who have not achieved DMR after ≥1 year of imatinib: ASC4MORE

In this abstract, what we’re exploring is, it’s specifically focused on those patients who are receiving treatment, in this case specifically with imatinib, that are having a good response to therapy, but not quite a deep molecular response. Therefore, they’re not eligible for treatment discontinuation. And because that is increasingly a goal for many of our patients, we wanted to see if we could improve those responses. The study initially had four arms. One was to continue on imatinib, the other one was switching to nilotinib, and then the other two were adding asciminib at two different doses. We reported those results a year ago, and it showed that adding asciminib was much better than switching to nilotinib, and of course, than staying on imatinib. However, one question is, do you really need to add asciminib, or can you just switch to ascminib? And that’s what we’re reporting in this meeting, that fifth arm that was added later. And what it shows is that it appears to be as good, probably even better than adding ascminib to the imatinib. So a significant number of patients, more than 40%, then reach those deep molecular responses, which, if it is sustained, would make them eligible for treatment discontinuation. The safety profile is good; there’s no really major toxicities; patients have not been required to discontinue therapy because of adverse events. So it may offer an option for those patients that are, in these circumstances, again, treated with imatinib, with not a great response, although a good response, that are interested in pursuing treatment discontinuation. Granted, this is a small study, only 20 patients in this cohort, so it has to be expanded, it has to be followed longer, but it offers an interesting lead in that direction.

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