Why new drug for kids with cancer is raising hope

An experimental drug to treat children with cancer is raising the hopes of many parents. The drug, blinatumomab, is less toxic than chemotherapy and is far more targeted. But what do we know about the drug? How does it work? And how is it better than chemo? Let’s take a closer look: The drug is manufactured by biopharmaceutical company Amgen. As per BBC, blinatumomab is now being administered to children with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL) on an experimental basis.

As per Cancer.gov, B-ALL is an aggressive type of blood cancer.

It is the most common form of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in both adults and children. Around 450 children per year in the UK are diagnosed with it, as per BBC. Blinatumomab, which has already been given the green signal for use in adults with cancer, is being trialled at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) as well as 20 other healthcare facilities around the country, as per Sky News. Arthur D’Hulst, 11, is one of the first children to try the experimental drug. Arthur was diagnosed with leukaemia. His family says he underwent traditional chemo but it didn’t work. Chemotherapy also left Arthur extremely frail and with awful side effects. “Chemo was very tiring and made me feel like I always wanted to sleep and I never had any energy to do anything,” Arthur told Sky News. [caption id=“attachment_13141192” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The drug is manufactured by biopharmaceutical company Amgen.[/caption] Arthur’s mother Sandrine Heutz told BBC, “It was completely out of his control - we were living in a constant challenge as his body was getting hit by the drugs.” “We were curing him by making him feel worse - it’s a very difficult thing to process.” Dr Sujith Samarasinghe of GOSH explained that this is because chemotherapy “is like a poison.” It “hits everything, the leukaemia cells, as well as all your normal cells within the body,” Samarasinghe added. Then, Arthur was offered blinatumomab – also known as ‘blina.’ How does it work? Blina works by targeting the CD19 protein on the leukaemia cells.

It allows the patient’s immune system to recognise the leukaemia cells – which is then targets and destroys.

Healthy cells, meanwhile, remain untargeted. The GOSH website states, “It is usually given 24 hours a day for four weeks followed by a two-week break without the infusion. It may be given at home using a portable infusion pump.” As per BBC, the drug comes in a bag of liquid. It is administered to the patient via a plastic tube which goes into a vein the patient’s arm. A pump, powered by a battery, regulates the dosage. All of this can be carried in a portable backpack. Arthur told Sky News that blina gave him a ‘burst of energy.’ He told BBC this allowed him to play on swings at his local park while the drug was being administered. According to BBC, Arthur had to go to the hospital every four days to let doctors top off the medicine but could do the rest by himself. “He enjoyed the fact that he was able to hold it and be responsible - he embraced all of it,” Heutz said. By April 2023, the tubing was removed from Arthur’s vein. “It was a big step - he was free,” Heutz said. According to BBC, doctors estimate that blina can replace a lot of the chemotherapy process – maybe up to 80 per cent of it. Heutz agrees. She told told Sky News the drug “feels like the future”. “It did feel so effective in terms of doing the job of getting rid of the cancer but also in the way that he was able to live with it,” Heutz added.

Arthur is now cancer free.

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“New Year was when we found out that the blina had worked and there was no residual cancer - and so that was just amazing and so we had double celebrations.” Amgen acquired Blincyto through a $1.2 billion 2012 purchase of Micromet, a biotechnology company founded in Germany. At the time, Blincyto was known by its chemical name, blinatumomab. With inputs from agencies