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Researcher in the lab
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a draft guidance on the use of minimal residual disease (MRD) assessment in trials of patients with hematologic malignancies.
The FDA said it developed this guidance to assist sponsors who are planning to use MRD as a biomarker in clinical trials conducted under an investigational new drug application or to support FDA approval of products intended to treat hematologic malignancies.
“As a result of important workshops where we’ve heard from stakeholders and an analysis of marketing applications showing inconsistent quality of MRD data, the FDA identified a need to provide sponsors with guidance on the use of MRD as a biomarker in regulatory submissions,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD.
The guidance explains how MRD might be used in clinical trials, highlights considerations for MRD assessment that are specific to certain hematologic malignancies, and lists requirements for regulatory submissions that utilize MRD.
The full document, “Hematologic Malignancies: Regulatory Considerations for Use of Minimal Residual Disease in Development of Drug and Biological Products for Treatment,” is available for download from the FDA website.
How MRD can be used
The guidance notes that MRD could potentially be used as a biomarker in clinical trials, specifically, as a diagnostic, prognostic, predictive, efficacy-response, or monitoring biomarker.
MRD could also be used as a surrogate endpoint, and there are two mechanisms for obtaining FDA feedback on the use of a novel surrogate endpoint to support approval of a product:
- The drug development tool qualification process
- Discussions with the specific Center for Drug Evaluation and Research or Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research review division.
Furthermore, a sponsor can use MRD “to select patients at high risk or to enrich the trial population,” according to the guidance.
Disease specifics
The guidance also details specific considerations for MRD assessment in individual hematologic malignancies. For example:
- In acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a patient with an MRD level of 0.1% or more in first or second complete remission has a high risk of relapse.
- In trials of acute myeloid leukemia, the sponsor should provide data showing that the marker selected to assess MRD “reflects the leukemia and not underlying clonal hematopoiesis.”
- Patients with low-risk acute promyelocytic leukemia who achieve MRD negativity after arsenic/tretinoin-based therapy are generally considered cured.
- In chronic lymphocytic leukemia, MRD can be assessed in the peripheral blood or bone marrow, but the sample source should remain the same throughout a trial.
- In chronic myeloid leukemia, MRD can be used to select and monitor patients who are eligible to discontinue treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
- In multiple myeloma, imaging techniques may be combined with MRD assessment of the bone marrow to assess patient response to treatment.
Types of technology
The guidance lists the four general technologies used for MRD assessment in hematologic malignancies:
- Multiparametric flow cytometry
- Next-generation sequencing
- Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction of specific gene fusions
- Allele-specific oligonucleotide polymerase chain reaction.
The FDA said it does not have a preference as to which technology is used in a trial. However, the sponsor must pre-specify the technology used and should utilize the same technology throughout a trial.
The FDA also said it “does not foresee the need for co-development of an MRD assay with a drug product.” However, the assay must be analytically valid for results important to the trial, and MRD assessment must be a clinically valid biomarker in the context in which it’s used.
If the MRD assay used is not FDA-cleared or -approved, additional information about the assay must be provided to the FDA.