A Study of Ibrutinib in Combination With Bendamustine and Rituximab in Patients With Relapsed or Refractory Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia or Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma

This is a randomized (patients will be assigned by chance to study treatments), double-blind (patients and study personnel will not know the identity of study treatments), placebo (an inactive substance that is compared with a drug to test whether the drug has a real effect in a clinical trial)-controlled study to determine the benefits and risks of combining ibrutinib with bendamustine and rituximab (BR) in patients with relapsed or refractory CLL/SLL following at least 1 line of prior systemic therapy. Approximately 580 patients will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to either treatment arm A (placebo) or treatment arm B (ibrutinib 420 mg). Study medication will be administered orally once daily on a continuous schedule. All patients will receive BR as the background therapy plus either ibrutinib or placebo for a maximum of 6 cycles, after which treatment with ibrutinib or placebo will continue until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. A treatment cycle will be defined as 28 days. The study will include a screening phase, a treatment phase, and a follow-up phase. Study end is defined as when either 80% of the patients have died or 5 years after the last patient is randomized into the study, whichever occurs first. Patients in treatment arm A (placebo) who complete the treatment phase, with disease progression or (after interim analysis) meet International Workshop on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (IWCLL) criteria for treatment, may crossover to ibrutinib treatment (as in treatment arm B), at the investigators discretion. This open-label, next-line treatment with ibrutinib will continue until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, withdrawal from study, or until the study end, whichever occurs earlier. One interim analysis is planned for the study. Efficacy evaluations will include computed tomography scans, laboratory testing, focused physical examinations, bone marrow biopsy and aspirate, and assessment of patient-reported outcomes. In both treatment arms, samples for the development of a population-based pharmacokinetic (PK; study of what the body does to a drug) approach will be collected. Safety will be assessed throughout the study.