Top advances of the year: Leukemia

In the year 2021, there were three new Food and Drug Administration approvals for all leukemia types: asciminib (Scemblix) for chronic myeloid leukemia, brexucabtagene autoleucel (Tecartus) for relapsed/refractory B-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia, and asparaginase erwinia chrysanthemi (recombinant)-rywn (Rylaze) for acute lymphocytic leukemia. This is down from 2017-2018 when eight new therapies were approved for acute myeloid leukemia alone. However, this decrease from prior years does not imply that little progress was made in our understanding or treatment of leukemias in 2021. Asciminib and brexucabtagene autoleucel, in particular, are representative of major developing trends. Asciminib, a targeted therapy, is only one of many drugs in development that are products of a bedside-to-bench approach fueled by new sequencing and other genetic technologies that have greatly increased our understanding of the biology behind hematologic diseases. Brexucabtagene autoleucel, an adoptive cell therapy, is the newest of several similar treatments for B cell-associated neoplasms, and it is representative of a massive push to develop novel immunotherapies for a broad range of hematologic malignancies. This commentary reviews the development of asciminib and brexucabtagene autoleucel and describes other major advances in the associated fields of targeted therapy and immunotherapy for leukemias.