trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/g4gs9ayztzbnynje56tbtq2 content esgSubNav
In This List

ASCO conference: Molecular Templates drug shown to reduce blood cancer

Blog

A Pharmaceutical Company Capitalizes on M&A Activity with Brokerage Research

Blog

2021 Year in Review: Highlighting Key Investment Banking Trends

Blog

Insight Weekly: US stock performance; banks' M&A risk; COVID-19 vaccine makers' earnings

Blog

Global M&A By the Numbers: Q3 2021


ASCO conference: Molecular Templates drug shown to reduce blood cancer

Molecular Templates Inc.'s experimental tumor-fighting treatment MT-3724 reduced the disease and was well-tolerated in certain blood cancer patients.

The Texas-based company is evaluating the treatment in a phase 1 and phase 1b extension study in patients with B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma whose disease had returned after treatment with chemotherapy and anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody rituximab, sold by Roche Holding AG as Rituxan.

B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma is cancer that starts in a type of white blood cell called B lymphocytes, which help protect the body against bacteria or viruses by making proteins called antibodies.

SNL Image

Anti-CD20 antibodies are designed to target the CD20 protein, primarily found on the surface of B cells, and trigger the death of B cells when they bind to this protein. They are used to treat diseases characterized by having overactive, dysfunctional or too many B cells.

MT-3724 is an immunotoxin that also targets CD20 and works to destroy the functions of the cells expressing the protein from the inside, thereby directly killing the cell.

Molecular Templates presented interim results from the studies at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

The company said patients with high circulating levels of rituximab at the start of the study showed poor response to MT-3724. The biopharmaceutical company will enroll only patients with low levels of rituximab in the ongoing phase 1b extension and future studies of MT-3724.

Results showed that 30% of the 10 patients with low levels of rituximab saw a reduction in their disease, with two patients seeing tumor reductions of 47% and 49%. The drug was generally well-tolerated in patients at a maximum dosage level of 50 micrograms/kilogram.

In addition to the extension study, the company plans to start phase 2 combinations studies in the second half of the year and a phase 2 monotherapy study at the end of the year.

Molecular Templates also noted that its phase 2 study of evofosfamide in pancreatic cancer showed promising response rates, overall survival and life extension while keeping the disease at bay but a phase 3 study, named Maestro, in the same patient population failed to replicate the benefits seen in the phase 2 trial.

The company said a new ethanol-based formation of the drug was introduced before the initiation of the Maestro trial and the drug exposure was substantially lower than the exposure in the phase 2 study at the same dose. However, in Japanese patients, substantially higher drug exposure was observed with correspondingly better clinical outcomes compared to patients in the Maestro study from the rest of the world.

Molecular Templates believes the formulation change may have adversely affected drug exposure and may have caused the reduced clinical benefit observed in the Maestro trial. The company is evaluating the current ethanol-based formulation of evofosfamide at higher doses in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Yervoy in a phase 1 study to replicate the exposure seen with the previous formulation in the phase 2 study.

The company said it plans to explore potential partnership opportunities for further development of evofosfamide.

The 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting is expected to bring together more than 32,000 professionals from all over the world, with more than 2,500 study abstracts to be presented on-site and an additional 3,350 abstracts to be published online.