Background: Covalent Bruton’s Tyrosine Kinase (BTK) inhibitors (BTKi) have transformed the management of relapsed mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), but these treatments are not curative and the majority of patients will require additional treatment. Covalent BTKi share pharmacologic liabilities (e.g. low oral bioavailability, short half-life) that collectively may lead to suboptimal BTK target coverage especially in rapidly proliferating tumors with high BTK protein turnover such as MCL. To address these limitations, pirtobrutinib, a highly selective, non-covalent BTKi that inhibits both wild type (WT) and C481-mutated BTK with equal low nM potency was developed. In the phase 1/2 BRUIN study, pirtobrutinib achieved pharmacokinetic exposures that exceeded its BTK IC96 at trough, was well tolerated, and demonstrated promising efficacy in heavily pretreated, poor-prognosis MCL patients, most of whom had prior treatment with a covalent BTKi.
Aims: The purpose of this randomized study is to determine whether pirtobrutinib is superior to investigator’s choice of covalent BTKi in patients with previously treated MCL.
Methods: BRUIN MCL-321 is a randomized, open-label, global phase 3 study comparing pirtobrutinib monotherapy versus investigator’s choice of covalent BTKi monotherapy (ibrutinib, acalabrutinib, or zanubrutinib) in patients with previously treated, BTKi naïve MCL. Approximately 500 patients will be randomized 1:1. Randomization will be stratified by sMIPI risk (low/intermediate vs high), comparator BTKi (ibrutinib vs acalabrutinib/ zanubrutinib), and number of prior lines of therapy (1 vs ≥ 2).
Eligible patients are adults aged ≥18 years with a confirmed diagnosis of MCL (cyclin D1 overexpression, and ≥ 1 B-cell marker) who have received ≥ 1 prior line of systemic therapy for MCL that did not include a prior BTKi. Patients must have measurable disease per Lugano criteria and must have progressed on or relapsed following the most recent line of therapy prior to study enrollment. Key exclusion criteria include a history of current or prior central nervous system (CNS) involvement, significant cardiovascular disease, stroke, or intracranial hemorrhage within 6 months of randomization, and allogeneic stem cell transplant (SCT), autologous SCT or chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy within 60 days of randomization.
The primary endpoint is progression-free survival (PFS) per Lugano criteria assessed by an independent review committee (IRC), with the goal of demonstrating superiority of pirtobrutinib over investigator’s choice of covalent BTKi. Secondary endpoints include overall response rate (ORR), duration of response (DoR), investigator-assessed PFS per Lugano criteria, overall survival, event-free survival, time to treatment failure, time to next treatment, PFS2 (time from randomization to disease progression on next line of treatment or death from any cause), safety and tolerability, and patient reported outcomes. This global study is currently enrolling patients (NCT04662255).
Results: This study is a Trial in Progress. The results will be presented at a later date.
Summary/Conclusion: This study is a Trial in Progress. The conclusions will be presented at a later date.