Bluebird’s Beta-Thalassemia Gene Therapy Faces US Panel Scrutiny On Hematologic Malignancy Risk

Although there were no cases of hematological malignancy reported and no evidence of insertional oncogenesis in patients treated with beti-cel, FDA raises a theoretical risk due to delayed platelet engraftment, as well as malignancies seen in other lentiviral vector programs.

Fireworks
Beti-cel administration led to transfusion independence for the majority of TDT patients in Phase III trials. • Source: Shutterstock

A US Food and Drug Administration advisory committee will consider recommendations for pretreatment screening and postmarketing safety monitoring to address the potential risk of hematologic malignancies with bluebird bio’s betibeglogene autotemcel (beti-cel), a lentiviral vector-based gene therapy for beta-thalassemia.

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