SELLAS Life Sciences Group Inc. said it has agreed to stop the phase 2b trial of its medicine NeuVax in breast cancer after the study met its key development objectives.
The New York-based company was evaluating NeuVax, which is also known as nelipepimut-S, in combination with Roche Holding AG's Herceptin to treat patients with HER2 1+/2+ breast cancer.
HER2 is a gene that can play a role in the development of breast cancer.
Sellas, which was studying whether the combination was better than Herceptin alone, will now seek regulatory guidance for further development of the treatment in triple-negative breast cancer patients.
Triple-negative breast cancers do not respond to hormonal therapy or therapies that target HER2 receptors, such as Herceptin, also known as trastuzumab.
"Based on data demonstrating that this combination therapy has the potential to become an important therapeutic option for [triple-negative breast cancer] patients facing a life-threatening disease and for whom current options in the adjuvant setting are extremely limited, we have determined, in consensus with Sellas, to close out the current study," George Peoples, the principal investigator of the phase 2 study, said in a statement.
