Cephalon Submits New Drug Application for TREANDA for the Treatment of Chronic Lymphocyti...( FRAZER Pa. Sept. 21 /- Cephalon I...)

FRAZER, Pa., Sept. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cephalon, Inc. (Nasdaq: CEPH) today announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting approval of TREANDA(R) (bendamustine HCl) for the treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). CLL is a slowly progressing blood and bone marrow disease with an estimated 15,000 new cases diagnosed every year in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute. If approved, TREANDA would be the first new therapy approved by the FDA for the treatment of CLL since 2001. In August 2007, the FDA granted orphan drug designation to TREANDA for this indication.

"This is our first regulatory filing for TREANDA and a significant milestone for our growing oncology portfolio," said Dr. Lesley Russell, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Medical and Regulatory Operations. "We also are developing TREANDA for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and are planning additional submissions for Cephalon oncology compounds to the FDA over the next 12 months."

The NDA is based on a large, international multi-center Phase 3 clinical trial that evaluated the safety and efficacy of bendamustine HCl, the active ingredient in TREANDA, compared to chlorambucil in patients who were not previously treated for their disease. Chlorambucil is an FDA-approved first- line therapy for patients with CLL. In the pivotal trial, bendamustine HCl met both primary endpoints, overall response and progression-free survival and demonstrated an acceptable tolerability profile. The company anticipates that results from this study will be released at the upcoming American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting in December 2007.

The company also is studying TREANDA for the treatment of patients with indolent (or slowly-progressing) non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), who are refractory to the monoclonal antibody rituximab. Pending positive results from this o
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