Date: 2016-11-09
Type of information: Clinical research agreement
Compound: Opdivo® (nivolumab) in combination with IPI-549
Company: BMS (USA - NY) Infinity Pharmaceuticals (USA - MA)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Type agreement: clinical research
Action mechanism: monoclonal antibody/immune checkpoint inhibitor/phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor.. Nivolumab is a fully-human PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor that binds to the checkpoint receptor PD-1 (programmed death-1) expressed on activated T-cells. PD-1, a receptor expressed on the surface of lymphocytes, plays a role in a regulatory pathway that suppresses activated lymphocytes in the body. Available evidence suggests that cancer cells exploit this pathway to escape from immune responses. Opdivo® is thought to provide benefit by blocking PD-1-mediated negative regulation of lymphocytes (i.e., the interaction of PD-1 with its ligands PD-L1 and PD-L2), thereby enhancing the ability of the immune system to recognize cancer cells as foreign and eliminate them. Opdivo® is the world’s first approved drug targeting PD-1. This monoclonal antibody has been generated under a research collaboration entered into in May 2005 between Ono and Medarex. When Medarex was acquired by BMS in 2009, it also granted BMS its rights to develop and commercialize the anti-human PD-1 monoclonal antibody in North America. Through the collaboration agreement entered into in September 2011 between Ono and BMS, Ono granted BMS exclusive rights to develop and commercialize Opdivo® in the rest of the world, except in Japan, Korea and Taiwan where Ono has retained all rights to develop and commercialize the compound. IPI-549 is an oral immuno-oncology development candidate that is designed to selectively inhibit phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)-gamma. In preclinical studies, IPI-549 inhibited immune suppressive macrophages within the tumor microenvironment, whereas other immunotherapies such as checkpoint modulators more directly target immune effector cell function. As such, IPI-549 represents a potentially complementary approach to restoring anti-tumor immunity in combination with other immunotherapies such as checkpoint inhibitors.
Disease: solid tumors
Details: * On November 9, 2016, BMS and Infinity Pharmaceuticals announced a clinical trial collaboration to evaluate BMS' Opdivo® in combination with Infinity's IPI-549 in patients with advanced solid tumors. The dose-escalation portion exploring IPI-549 as a monotherapy in Infinity's Phase 1 study is continuing, and the first dose-escalation cohort studying IPI-549 in combination with Opdivo®, a PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor, is expected to begin this fall.
Preclinical data suggest that IPI-549 may enhance the effects of checkpoint inhibitors and may also reverse tumor resistance to checkpoint inhibitors by targeting immune cells and altering the immune-suppressive microenvironment, promoting an anti-tumor immune response. Opdivo® is designed to overcome immune suppression. The combination phase of this ongoing Phase 1 study in patients with advanced solid tumors will explore the potential of combining these two agents to drive improved and sustained efficacy and tolerability above the current standard of care by targeting the immune-suppressive cells in the tumor microenvironment.
The ongoing Phase 1 clinical study of IPI-549 is designed to explore the activity, safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of IPI-549 as a monotherapy and in combination with Opdivo in approximately 175 patients with advanced solid tumors. Once the dose-escalation phase evaluating Opdivo plus IPI-549 is completed, an expansion phase is planned to evaluate the combination in patients with selected solid tumors, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN).
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