FDA Grants Priority Review to Amgen's Tarlatamab Application for Advanced Small Cell Lung Cancer

Currently There are no Approved Therapeutic Options for Third-Line Treatment of Advanced SCLC1

If Approved, Tarlatamab Would be the First BiTE® Therapy for a Major Solid Tumor

FDA Target Action Date is June 12, 2024

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif., Dec. 13, 2023 / - Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted and granted Priority Review for the Company's Biologics License Application (BLA) for tarlatamab.

Tarlatamab is a potential first-in-class, investigational delta-like ligand 3 (DLL3) targeting Bispecific T-cell Engager (BiTE®) therapy for the treatment of adult patients with advanced small cell lung cancer (SCLC) with disease progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy.  

"The FDA's Priority Review designation for this application underscores the urgency to provide new treatment options for patients with advanced SCLC who have progressed following treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy," said David M. Reese, M.D., executive vice president of Research and Development at Amgen. "While first-line treatments often show strong responses, patients can experience aggressive recurrences and long-term survival remains a challenge.2,3 Unfortunately, for patients who relapse, there are limited treatment options, emphasizing the importance of bringing new therapies to this patient population with advanced disease."

The FDA grants Priority Review to applications for medicines that offer, if approved, significant improvements over available options or may provide a treatment option where no adequate therapy currently exists. Based on the Priority Review designation, the Prescription Drug User Fee Action (PDUFA) date for tarlatamab is June 12, 2024.

The BLA is based on the Phase 2 results from the DeLLphi-301 clinical trial that studied patients with advanced SCLC with disease progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. Results from the study were recently featured as part of a late-breaking presentation during the 2023 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress and simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.4,5 The data presented demonstrated antitumor activity with a durable response and encouraging survival outcomes in previously treated SCLC. The safety profile was consistent with the Phase 1 trial.6

Tarlatamab is being investigated in multiple studies including DeLLphi-302, a Phase 1b study evaluating tarlatamab in combination with an anti-PD-1 therapy in second-line or later SCLC; DeLLphi-303, a Phase 1b study investigating tarlatamab in combination with standard of care therapies in first-line SCLC; DeLLphi-304, a randomized Phase 3 trial comparing tarlatamab monotherapy with standard of care chemotherapy in second-line treatment of SCLC that is enrolling patients; DeLLphi-306, a recently-initiated, randomized Phase 3 trial of tarlatamab following chemoradiotherapy in earlier settings of SCLC; and DeLLpro-300, a Phase 1b study of tarlatamab in de novo or treatment-emergent neuroendocrine prostate cancer.7 Amgen also plans to initiate an additional Phase 3 study of tarlatamab in first-line treatment of SCLC.

In October, tarlatamab was granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the FDA. The application is being reviewed by the FDA under the Project Orbis framework and Real Time Oncology Review (RTOR). Project Orbis is an initiative from the FDA Oncology Center of Excellence that provides a framework for concurrent submission of oncology products among certain countries...Amgen's Press Release - NCT05060016 -

CorVista Health Announces AHA Presentation of Machine Learning to Detect Pulmonary Hypertension at Point-of-Care

Washington DC—November 12, 2023—CorVista Health, Inc, a leading digital health company dedicated to improving cardiovascular disease diagnosis, is pleased to announce the presentation of Machine Learning to Detect Pulmonary Hypertension data at AHA.

“We are pleased to present this important data at this year’s AHA meeting.” said Don Crawford, President and CEO of CorVista Health. “Pulmonary hypertension is a challenging condition to diagnose, especially early in the disease progression. This presentation follows the FDA’s Breakthrough Designation for the CorVista System Add-On to detect pulmonary hypertension and the recent FDA clearance of the coronary artery disease platform.”

Pulmonary hypertension (PH), a life-threatening condition with significant morbidity and mortality, affects an estimated 1% of the world population. It is present in 10% of people over age 65 and 50% of patients with heart failure. Further, the subgroup of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is frequently diagnosed years after symptom onset, at a point when the pathophysiologic changes have become irreversible.

Existing diagnostics for PH are insufficient; for instance, the sensitivity and specificity of Transthoracic Echocardiography (TTE) varies over a wide range. Moreover, TTE requires specialized equipment and technical support that is often unavailable. Herein we present the results of a machine-learned model addressing the need for an improved point-of-care test for PH in newly symptomatic subjects.

The presentation demonstrates the ability to develop a point of care method to detect PH, based on cardiac orthogonal voltage gradient (OVG) signals and photoplethysmographic (PPG) signals. A machine learned (ML) algorithm was developed to discriminate subjects with no evidence of diastolic dysfunction nor PH on TTE vs. those with mPAP≥25 mmHg from right heart catheterization.

The AUC of the algorithm was 0.93, the sensitivity 87%, and the specificity 83%. Further, the performance is preserved in all subgroups, including pre-capillary PH. This supervised machine-learned model therefore provides strong preliminary evidence that an algorithm can be developed to assess the likelihood of PH in patients with new onset symptoms of cardiovascular disease... CorVista Health's Press Release -