Date: 2015-05-29
Type of information: Presentation of results at a congress
phase: 1-2
Announcement: presentation of results at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, in Chicago
Company: BMS (USA - NY)
Product: Opdivo® (nivolumab)
Action
mechanism: monoclonal antibody. Nivolumab is an investigational, 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.
Disease: hepatocellular carcinoma
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Country: Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, UK, USA
Trial
details: CA209-040 is a Phase I/II dose-ranging trial that evaluated the safety and anti-tumor activity of Opdivo in patients with HCC, the majority of whom had received prior treatment. The trial included 47 HCC patients who were enrolled into one of three treatment arms depending on whether or not they were infected with HCV or HBV. Patients enrolled in the trial received Opdivo doses ranging from 0.1 – 10 mg/kg intravenously every 2 weeks for up to 2 years. The primary objective was safety, tolerability, dose limiting toxicities, and maximum tolerated dose. Anti-tumor activity was a secondary objective (using RECIST 1.1 criteria), and overall survival was an exploratory objective. (NCT01658878)
Latest
news: * On May 29, 2015, BMS announced results from an interim analysis of CA209-040, a Phase I/II dose-ranging trial evaluating the safety and anti-tumor activity of Opdivo® (nivolumab) in previously-treated patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) or advanced liver cancer. Initial findings demonstrated that the estimated survival rate in evaluable patients (n=47) was 62% at 12 months. Results also show the safety profile of Opdivo® is generally consistent with that previously-reported for Opdivo in other tumor types. These data have been featured during the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Abstract LBA101). CA209-040 is a Phase I/II dose-ranging trial that evaluated the safety and anti-tumor activity of Opdivo in patients with HCC, the majority of whom had received prior treatment. As of this interim analysis, 62% of patients in the study were still alive after 12 months. Eight (19%) patients (of 42 evaluable patients) achieved a complete or partial response, meaning that the size of their tumors measured at baseline decreased by 30–100% with Opdivo treatment. In patients with response, duration of response ranged from more than 1.4 – 12.5 months. Seventeen patients remained on study treatment and 30 discontinued treatment due to progressive disease (n=26), complete response (n=2), or adverse events (n=2). In the trial, safety and tolerability were well-characterized, with the frequency and intensity of treatment-related adverse events (AEs) being consistent across Opdivo dose levels. The majority of side effects were mild to moderate in nature with abnormal liver enzymes (19% AST and 15% ALT), rash (17%) and elevation of amylase (15%) and lipase (17%) being the most common; the abnormal liver enzymes and elevated amylase and lipase were not accompanied by any significant clinical symptoms. Grade 3–4 treatment-related AEs were infrequent (19%). There were no treatment-related deaths reported.
