What happened
Shares of Autolus Therapeutics (AUTL +1.70%) were trading 35% higher as of 3:37 p.m. EDT on Wednesday. Those big gains came after the company announced that its experimental CD19 cell therapy, AUTO1, had achieved 100% remission in patients with relapsed/refractory indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma in an early-stage study.
So what
Autolus stated that AUTO1's results will be included in an abstract presentation at the European Hematology Association (EHA) Virtual Congress scheduled for June 9 through June 17. The company said that of the 10 patients who had received AUTO1 as of Feb. 18, nine were evaluable. All nine of those patients achieved complete remission rates.
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The company also noted that no incidents of high-grade cytokine release syndrome (CRS) or neurotoxicity were observed in any of the patients. CRS is often observed in patients who receive chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies. However, grade 1 (mild) CRS occurred in four patients, and one experienced grade 2 (moderate) CRS. In addition, one patient who achieved complete remission from their lymphoma died from COVID-19.
Now what
The next major catalyst for the clinical-stage biotech stock shouldn't be far off. Autolus expects to report results from a phase 1 study evaluating programmed T cell therapy AUTO4 in treating peripheral T cell lymphoma in the second half of this year. The company also hopes to announce results from a potentially pivotal study of AUTO1 in treating relapsed/refractory B-acute lymphocytic leukemia in 2022.
