The rheumatoid arthritis drug abatacept combined with standard graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prevention reduced the rate of acute GVHD substantially in 8/8 HLA-matched and 7/8 HLA-mismatched unrelated donor (URD) recipients in a recent phase 2 study.
The regimen of abatacept (Orencia, Bristol Myers Squibb) plus standard GVHD prevention reduced the rate of acute GVHD by more than 50% in patients receiving transplants from 8/8 HLA-matched URDs. The regimen produced even more dramatic results in