The drug, currently under an expedited review by U.S. regulators, wiped out tumors for 30 percent of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, compared with 2 percent who did that well on GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Leukeran, researchers said Sunday at the American Society of Hematology meeting in Atlanta.

“People in the U.S. don’t know much about this drug yet, but it’s going to be an important new therapeutic for chronic lymphocytic leukemia,” said Hagop Kantarjian, chairman of the Leukemia Department at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, in a telephone interview.

Cephalon, based in Frazer, Pennsylvania, expects the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will decide whether to clear Treanda for sale by March. About 15,000 people in the U.S. get the disease each year, according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, a patient advocacy group based in White Plains, New York.

Treanda, known chemically as bendamustine, was tested in a clinical trial of 305 patients newly diagnosed with the disease, researchers said. People who took Treanda were alive without any evidence of tumors spreading for 21.7 months, compared with 9.3 months for those on Leukeran, researchers said.

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