With FDA approval for Elrexfio, Pfizer brings multiple myeloma battle to Johnson & Johnson

The FDA approved Pfizer’s Elrexfio, or elranatamab, for patients with multiple myeloma who’ve tried at least four prior lines of therapy.
Elrexfio will go toe to toe with Johnson & Johnson’s Tecvayli. Both drugs are bispecific antibodies that engage T cells to target BCMA-expressing cancer cells, and both are delivered under the skin. So far, the two therapies’ efficacy data are largely similar, while Elrexfio appears to boast a convenience edge—for now.
Pfizer will make Elrexfio available in the following weeks, a Pfizer spokesperson told Fierce Pharma. The drug bears an average monthly list price of $41,500, and a treatment course could cost around $330,000 based on the duration of treatment observed in a clinical trial, the spokesperson said. By comparison, J&J priced Tecvayli initially at $39,500 per month.
Elrexfio’s label shows that the Pfizer drug shrank tumors in 58% of patients who had received at least four lines of therapy prior to enrollment in cohort A of the phase 2 MagnetisMM-3 study. Updated data in June linked the drug to a 61% objective response rate, including 35% of patients who experienced a compete response or better. None of the patients had tried a BCMA-directed therapy before the study.
In J&J’s MajesTEC-1 trial, meanwhile, Tecvayli delivered an overall response rate of 63%, with 45% of patients experiencing complete responses or better, according to longer-term follow-up data shared in June. But the Tecvayli results came from a group that also included patients who had tried three prior lines of therapy.
Source: Fiercepharma