When Nektar Therapeutics Inc. decided to push ahead with development of Treg stimulator rezpegaldesleukin (rezpeg) in atopic dermatitis despite what appeared to be middling early stage data, investors weren’t exactly jumping up and down. But it turns out those data are more promising than originally thought.
Nektar Therapeutics Inc. President and CEO Howard Robin didn’t mince words during a call with investors after market close Feb. 23 to disclose top-line data from a phase II study testing rezpegaldesleukin (rezpeg) in systemic lupus erythematosus, which fell short of partner Eli Lilly and Co.’s criteria for advancing to phase III and raised uncertainty as to how the big pharma might proceed in other indications such as atopic dermatitis (AD).
Canwell Biotech Ltd. raised more than ¥100 million (US$14.8 million) in a series A+ financing. The funds will help accelerate trials for its pipeline of anticancer assets, such as the TLR7 agonist CAN-1012, and preclinical development of other projects too, CEO Henry Yu told BioWorld. The State Development and Investment Corporation Venture Capital Co. Ltd. was the round’s sole investor.
Four years after Bristol Myers Squibb Co.’s (BMS) $1.85 billion investment in Nektar Therapeutics Inc., the pair’s collaboration has stumbled mightily with a phase III failure. A first analysis their melanoma study, PIVOT IO-001, showed it missed three primary endpoints. The study of interleukin-2-targeting NKTR-214 (bempegaldesleukin) combined with Opdivo (nivolumab) compared to Opdivo monotherapy as a first-line treatment for previously untreated, unresectable or metastatic melanoma did not meet the primary endpoints of progression-free survival and objective response rate.
With data due the first half of this year from the phase III trial testing Opdivo (nivolumab, Bristol Myers Squibb Co.) plus Nektar Therapeutics Inc.’s bempegaldesleukin (bempeg) in metastatic melanoma, the possibilities for engineered cytokines such as the latter remain alluring in many quarters.
The already intriguing IL-2 pathway as a therapeutic target gained still more traction after San Francisco-based Nektar Therapeutics Inc. unveiled melanoma data with bempegaldesleukin (bempeg), its CD122-preferential agent in the class.
Seattle-based Neoleukin Therapeutics Inc. is targeting the end of 2020 for an IND submission related to prospective cancer immunotherapy NL-201, described as an engineered, hyperstable agonist of interleukin-2 (IL-2) and IL-15. It’s meant to eliminate alpha receptor binding and thereby overcome the problems with native IL-2.
During its Feb. 27, 2020, conference call on the previous year’s fourth-quarter results – though not in a related press release – Nektar Therapeutics Inc. let news drop that the prospective breast cancer (BC) therapy Onzeald (etirinotecan pegol) for patients with brain metastases had failed in top-line phase III outcomes.
What with the lawsuits, declining prescriptions and approval hurdles that seem to be the U.S. answer to a nationwide opioid epidemic, drug companies have to think long and hard before spending the resources to develop yet another opioid drug. And patients are paying the price.
As a word to the wise in a week filled with FDA advisory committee meetings on potential new opioid drugs, the state of Oklahoma filed a lawsuit Monday against three distributors, reminding everyone in the U.S. opioid prescription supply chain of the risk of litigation and hefty penalties.
