Europe was a bigger counterpart to China in pharmaceutical dealmaking than the U.S. last year, speakers at Chinabio Partnering Forum said April 23, and the trend is likely to continue in 2025 with the shuttering of U.S. capital and volatility ailing global markets.
The intriguing VEGFxPD-1 bispecific antibody space gained oomph with phase III results disclosed April 23 by Akeso Pharmaceuticals Inc. related to Harmoni-6, testing ivonescimab in combination with platinum-based chemotherapy compared with Tevimbra (tislelizumab, Beigene Ltd.), a PD-1 inhibitor also paired with platinum-based chemo in patients with locally advanced or metastatic squamous non-small-cell lung cancer irrespective of PD-L1 expression. Those data were followed by a green light from the U.S. FDA April 24 for marketing the PD-1 monoclonal antibody penpulimab in combination with cisplatin or carboplatin and gemcitabine for the first-line treatment of adult recurrent or metastatic non-keratinizing nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
Ascentage Pharma Group Corp. Ltd. said two of its novel candidates have been included in the 2025 Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology Guidelines, including its in-house developed Bcl-2 selective inhibitor, lisaftoclax (APG-2575), which is under review in China and could be the first domestically approved Bcl-2 inhibitor and the second global approval.
Orum Therapeutics Inc. on April 26 pulled the plug on a U.S.-based phase I study of ORM-5029, its lead oncology degrader antibody conjugate (DAC) asset, a decision that came months after the company first reported a patient death in November 2024.
Off-the-shelf cancer vaccine specialist Nouscom AG announced positive final results for its lead product, Nous-209, showing there was a “highly potent” and durable immune response in carriers of Lynch syndrome, a common hereditary condition that can increase the lifetime risk of cancer by as much as 80%. The data, presented at the annual American Association for Cancer Research meeting on April 29, indicate Nous-209 elicits a cancer-preventing effect.
Ono Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. terminated development of CTX-177 (ONO-7018), its ex-oncology candidate in-licensed from Chordia Therapeutics Inc. in December 2020 for up to ¥52.9 billion (US$370.37 million).
Nippon Shinyaku Co. Ltd. has divulged azaindole compounds acting as mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma translocation protein 1 (MALT1) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, spinal cord injury, Behçet’s disease, atopic dermatitis and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, among others.
Aberrant signaling by fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs) drives tumor cell survival and proliferation in several cancers, making them promising therapeutic targets.
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