Peter Hillmen, MBChb, PhD, FRCP, FRCPath of St. James’ University Hospital, Leeds, UK discusses acalabrutinib for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) at the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, held in San Diego, CA. Prof. Hillmen explains that acalabrutinib is a more specific BTK inhibitor than ibrutinib. They presented data on patients with Richter’s transformation treated with acalabrutinib and patients treated with acalabrutinib with ibrutinib intolerance (NCT02029443). For patients with Richter’s transformation, the responses were good with tolerable side effects and as a next step, they are looking to combine acalabrutinib with chemotherapy. In terms of patients with ibrutinib intolerance, they saw good tolerability and good responses.