Aurigene Oncology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dr. Reddy's Laboratories has announced the Phase 1 results for Ribrecabtagene autoleucel (DRL-1801) from the SWASTH study – India's first trial for a novel autologous BCMA directed CAR-T cell therapy in patients with relapsed / refractory multiple myeloma.

The study reported initial results from the first 8 patients. All patients were heavily pre-treated with median of 5.5 previous lines of treatment. Most patients had also received transplant in the past and had disease progression post-transplant. All 8 patients (100%) achieved clinical response, with 5/8 (62.5%) having achieved stringent complete response. With respect to safety, there were no high-grade events of Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) or neurotoxicity, in any of the patients.

After reviewing the Phase 1 data, the Indian Regulatory Agency i.e., Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), has given the nod to commence Phase 2 part of the trial. These results of Phase 1 were presented at the 21st annual meeting of the International Myeloma Society at Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, held recently.

Ribrecabtagene autoleucel is an autologous anti-BCMA CAR-T therapy that utilizes a humanized single-domain antibody as the antigen binding domain and lentivirus as a vector. DRL-1801 for the clinical trials is manufactured at the CAR-T GMP manufacturing facility at Aurigene Oncology, Bangalore.