AbbVie said Thursday that the American Society of Hematology (ASH) accepted its phase 3 MURANO study of venetoclax as a late-breaking abstract for presentation at the 59th ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition.

"Our data presentations at this year's ASH Annual Meeting underscore our continued commitment to patients and deep expertise in researching hematologic malignancies across various difficult-to-treat blood cancers," said Gary Gordon, vice president of AbbVie’s oncology clinical development.

The abstract is one of the six late-breaking abstracts accepted for presentation at the ASH meeting held in Atlanta, Georgia from Dec. 9-12, the company said.

Venetoclax is a B-cell lymphoma-2 (BLC-2) inhibitor, co-developed by AbbVie and Genentech, a Roche Group offshoot. The phase 3 MURANO study evaluates a venetoclax and rituximab combination in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (R/R CLL), the company said.

"We are encouraged by the Phase 3 venetoclax data. We believe clinical study data for this medicine show the potential of improving treatment across a wide range of blood cancers, including CLL,” Gordon said.

AbbVie said ASH 2017 accepted 28 of its abstracts, including data on investigational studies on various blood diseases such as acute myeloid leukemia, multiple myeloma, and chronic graft-versus-host-disease, among others.

AbbVie will also present data on a Burton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, ibrutinib, co-developed by Pharmacyclics (an AbbVie company) and Janssen Biotech, and a cell-surface glycoprotein co-developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AbbVie, among other early-stage investigational compounds, at the meeting, it said.