Bayer wins FDA’s Priority Review for its follicular lymphoma drug

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Priority Review designation for the New Drug Application (NDA) for Bayer’s copanlisib for the treatment of relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma (FL) patients who have received at least two prior therapies.

Copanlisib is an intravenous pan-class I phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor with predominant inhibitory activity against PI3K-α and PI3K-δ isoforms. FL is the most common subtype of indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (iNHL).

“Patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma have a poor prognosis, and new treatment options which are well tolerated and effective are needed to prolong progression-free survival and improve quality of life for these patients,” said Martin Dreyling, Professor of Medicine at the University of Munich Hospital in Grosshadern and lead investigator of the CHRONOS-1 study. “Based on the CHRONOS-1 results, where copanlisib showed durable efficacy with a manageable and distinct safety profile, the compound may have the potential to address this unmet medical need.”