Blueprint Medicines

Recently a number of companies have begun to develop therapeutic options that target some of the rarer mutations in GIST. As there are currently no approved treatments specifically for these patients, this is undoubtedly a positive development and a trend the LRG will both continue to watch and would like to see increase in the near future.

One example of such a company is Blueprint Medicines, who is currently running a Phase I clinical trial for BLU-285, a drug that targets both KIT Exon 17 and PDGFRA Exon 18 D842V mutations. BLU-285 was granted an orphan drug designation by the FDA in January of 2016, and their Phase I trial is currently enrolling patients in the dose escalation phase. In this phase, the goal is to determine the maximum tolerable dose (MTD) of the medication. Results from this trial are planned to be released by Blueprint by the end of 2016.

Blueprint Medicines to attend Life Fest

Blueprint will also be on hand at this year’s Life Fest, being held from July 15th – 17th in Redondo Beach, California. Representatives from the company will be on hand Saturday morning to participate in a breakfast roundtable and answer questions about the trial, the drug itself, and its potential therapeutic value to GIST patients with the specific mutations it targets.

To see a copy of the agenda for Life Fest, which includes this breakfast roundtable and lots of other extremely informative sessions and workshops, please go to https://staging.liferaftgroup.org/life-fest-2016-agenda/.

To learn more about the BLU-285 trial, including recruitment sites and a presentation from the 2015 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting, please go to the LRG Clinical Trials Database.