Micromet, Inc, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel, proprietary antibodies for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and autoimmune diseases, has received Orphan Drug Designation from the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) for BiTE antibody blinatumomab (MT103) for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). Blinatumomab is a novel therapeutic antibody that activates a patient's T cells to seek out and destroy cancer cells.

In June, Micromet announced that the company had achieved its primary endpoint in an ongoing phase-2 study of ALL patients. The company presented data at the the 14th Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA) in Berlin, Germany, showing an 81 per cent response rate in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients with minimal residual disease (MRD).

The patients included in this phase-2 clinical trial were in complete hematological remission following intense chemotherapy regimens, but retained a detectable level of ALL cancer cells in their bone marrow - so called minimal residual disease (MRD). Various studies have confirmed that ALL patients with MRD following chemotherapy have a significantly worse prognosis than patients without MRD.

According to the EMEA, 'orphan' medicinal products are intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of life-threatening or chronically debilitating conditions that affect no more than five in 10,000 people in the European Union, or are medicines which, for economic reasons, would be unlikely to be developed without incentives.

The aim of the EU legislative framework for orphan medicines is to stimulate research and development of medicinal products for rare diseases by providing incentives to the pharmaceutical industry such as simplified access to EMEA's scientific consulting resources. This initiative helps to give patients suffering from rare diseases access to the same quality of treatment as other patients.

Micromet is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel, proprietary antibodies for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and autoimmune diseases.