REFRACT: Relapsed Follicullar lymphoma Randomised trial Against standard Chemo Therapy ( REFRACT)

A new clinical trial will test whether a combination of two drugs—epcoritamab and lenalidomide—can outperform standard chemotherapy for patients whose follicular lymphoma has returned or stopped responding to treatment. This matters because follicular lymphoma, a slow-growing blood cancer, often relapses after initial treatment. When it does, patients face limited options and diminishing returns from repeated chemotherapy. The current standard of care has not changed substantially in years, and there is no clear consensus on the best second-line or third-line approach. The REFRACT trial directly addresses this gap by systematically comparing a novel immunotherapy-based regimen against whatever therapy the patient’s doctor would normally choose. If the experimental treatment proves more effective, it could establish a new standard of care for relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma—offering patients a targeted, chemotherapy-free option that may extend remission with fewer side effects. The trial’s platform design also allows future experimental treatments to be added in later rounds, creating an efficient infrastructure for testing multiple new therapies against the same control arm. This could accelerate the pace at which promising drugs reach patients, without requiring a new trial from scratch each time.