Dr. DeAngelo on Rates of CRS with Obe-cel in ALL

Daniel J. DeAngelo, MD, PhD, associate professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, physician, Adult Leukemia Program, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses rates of cytokine release syndrome (CRS) with obecabtagene autoleucel (obe-cel; formerly AUTO1) in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Obe-cel was previously evaluated in the phase 1 ALLCAR19 trial (NCT02935257) in patients with select B-cell malignancies. The agent will be further explored in patients with ALL in the phase 1/2 FELIX trial (NCT04404660).

Compared with known rates of CRS with other CAR T-cell therapies, patients who received obe-cel had lower instances of severe CRS, DeAngelo explains. Instances of grade 1 or 2 CRS were reported, though there were limited cases of grade 3 or 4, with no cases of grade 5, DeAngelo adds.

Other neurotoxic adverse effects (AEs) were also limited, DeAngelo says. The lower affinity CD-19 binder of obe-cel resulted in less severe T-cell activation, leading to lower rates of severe CRS and neurotoxicity, DeAngelo concludes.