Benzinga | Jun 4, 2021 09:16AM EDT

Cellectar Presents Data in Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia in Poster at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting

Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLRB), a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of cancer, today presented a poster at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual meeting. In conjunction with the poster presentation, management will host a KOL call with the lead investigator for the company's Phase 2 CLOVER-1 study of CLR 131 in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell hematologic cancers, Dr. Sikander Ailawadhi, M.D. of the Mayo Clinic.

The poster presentation entitled: Treatment Free Remission (TFR) and Overall Response Rate (ORR) Results in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia (WM) Treated with CLR 131 is an in-depth update of six patients from the company's Phase 2a study of CLR 131 in Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia. To date, data have shown:

* 100% (6/6) overall response rate, 83.3% (5/6) major response rate and a 16.7% (1/6) complete response rate

* Median time to initial response was 22 days after first infusion

* Median time to major response, as defined as at least a 50% reduction in IgM, was 44 days after first infusion

* Mean treatment free remission, as defined as the time from the last CLR 131 infusion to progression of disease, is 1.1 years and remains ongoing

* Duration of response has not been reached, with 100% of the MYD88 wild type and high risk patients exceeding 8.5 months

* Progression free survival (PFS) for both MYD88 wild type patients as well as the high-risk subgroup has not been reached after 18 months; PFS for multidrug refractory patients was 11 months

* The most frequently reported treatment emergent adverse events were cytopenias

"CLR 131 is a differentiated targeted radiotherapy that has the potential to address patients with any mutational status, risk profile or multi-drug refractoriness in WM. Our pivotal study strategy will leverage these properties to address the treatment needs of patients, including the potential to provide durable response rates and meaningful treatment-free remission," said Dr. John Friend, chief medical officer at Cellectar. "CLR 131 has demonstrated impressive results including, to our knowledge, the only monotherapy to result in a complete response in this challenging WM patient set."

James Caruso, president and CEO of Cellectar added, "The data presented today from our ongoing Phase 2 CLOVER-1 study of CLR 131 in Waldenstrom's further validates our clinical development program and gives us confidence in our goal of providing a new and better treatment with the potential to prolong and improve the quality of life for patients suffering from this devastating disease."

Management will host a conference call and webcast today, June 4, at 10:00 am ET featuring key opinion leader Dr. Sikander Ailawadhi. Dr. Ailawadhi is a Professor of Medicine, Lead, International Cancer Center, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Departments of Medicine and Cancer Biology at Mayo Clinic Florida. He was awarded the 2013 NCI Cancer Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Subsequently, he joined the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Mayo Clinic in Florida as a Senior Consultant in order pursue his career goal of clinical, translational and outcomes-based research in B-cell malignancies.