Ofatumumab?

On an earlier thread, this was posted:

"At the PDSA conference last July, I asked Dr. James Bussel for an alternative to Rituxan and he recommended a new biologic called Ofatumumab. It is a fully (100%) human antibody against CD20 on the b-lymphocyte, and is used for treatment of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. Because it is a fully human antibody, in theory, it should not cause serum sickness. Serum sickness is a reaction against the mouse protein in Rituxan."

Many years ago I tried Rituxan. It didn't work for me, but I had no bad side effects. Does anyone know if ofatumumab (where do they get these names?) would be a possibility for someone in my situation?

Karen

Karen, I don't see why it wouldn't be an option, especially if you didn't have a problem with Rituxan.

Each syllable in the name of a drug usually has a meaning. For example, the "Mab" as in Rituximab or Ofatumumab always refers to 'monoclonal antibodies'.

Both are anti-CD20 antibodies although they work in slightly different ways. The doctors may conclude that as hitting the B cells once didn't work, it wouldn't work again albeit with a different drug. Interesting question to ask an expert.

Good point, but wouldn't that be the same as the TPO's? Sometimes one works and the other does not. It's odd how responses differ from patient to patient.

I thought this was still in clinical trials....

According to Wikipedia, it is FDA approved, and has also received conditional approval in Europe, for the treatment of refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia. It is still in trials for other indications, and I assume it is already being used off-label.

Sandi wrote: Good point, but wouldn't that be the same as the TPO's? Sometimes one works and the other does not. It's odd how responses differ from patient to patient.

I don't know but my thinking was that if the ITP is really caused by CD20 then it doesn't really matter how the drug works as long as the result is the same.

With the TPOs, we don't really know what the problem is with the body and each TPO may be correcting something different. Obviously there is more than one way that things could be wrong in the patients.

I'd now wonder why they'd bother to produce a new drug if it does exactly the same thing. Just to cut out serum sickness reactions? Human monoclonals can still cause hypersensitivity reactions.

I'm not picking at you Ann, just curious. When I don't know something, I look to you.