On October 1, 2018 Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: FPRX), a biotechnology company discovering and developing innovative immuno-oncology protein therapeutics, and Zai Lab Limited (Nasdaq: ZLAB), a Shanghai-based innovative biopharmaceutical company, reported dosing of the first patient in the Phase 3 FIGHT pivotal trial of bemarituzumab (FPA144), an isoform-selective FGF receptor 2b (FGFR2b) antibody, in combination with chemotherapy in patients with previously untreated, advanced gastric cancer (GC) or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer (Press release, Five Prime Therapeutics, OCT 1, 2018, View Source [SID1234529684]). The first patient was dosed at a participating investigative site in China on Sept. 28.

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"We are very pleased to have dosed the first patient in our FIGHT gastric cancer trial in China, where Zai Lab is responsible for the regulatory and development timeline for this global study," said Helen Collins, M.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Five Prime. "Tumors overexpressing FGFR2b are associated with a poor prognosis, and a targeted therapy that provides improved efficacy when added to standard therapy could transform treatment options for these patients. Bemarituzumab has demonstrated encouraging monotherapy activity in the late-line setting, and we hope to provide greater benefit by combining with chemotherapy in the front-line setting."

"This is the first time that the first patient dosed in a global registrational trial came from China as a result of the collaboration between a U.S. biotechnology company and a Chinese biotechnology company," said Dr. Yongjiang Hei, CMO of Zai Lab. "Gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the world and the second most common in China. There is an urgent need globally, and particularly in China, where we are responsible for both development and commercialization, for more effective and well-tolerated targeted therapies for gastric cancer patients. We are pleased that the clinical trial application (CTA) was approved three months ahead of schedule, which will help accelerate the global FIGHT trial in our collaboration with Five Prime."

About the FIGHT Trial

The double-blind randomized and controlled Phase 3 FIGHT (FGFR2b Inhibition in Gastric and Gastroesophageal Junction Cancer Treatment)trial will evaluate 15 mg/kg of bemarituzumab or placebo given every two weeks combined with modified FOLFOX6 (mFOLFOX6) chemotherapy in approximately 550 patients with GC or GEJ cancer whose tumors overexpress FGFR2b. The Phase 3 global registration trial is the first prospective FGFR2b-specific front-line gastric study and will include approximately 250 sites in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, where the incidence of gastric cancer is among the highest worldwide. Zai Lab and Five Prime have a strategic development collaboration under which Zai Lab will manage the Phase 3 portion of the FIGHT trial in China, where approximately half of the patients in the trial are expected to be enrolled.

The primary endpoint of the FIGHT trial is overall survival (OS), with key secondary endpoints being progression-free survival (PFS), objective response rate (ORR), safety and pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters.

Unmet Need in GC and GEJ

GC, including GEJ cancer, is the fifth most common cancer worldwide and third leading cause of cancer death. Gastric cancer is the second most common cancer in China.

Current first-line chemotherapy treatment delays progression by approximately six months compared to best supportive care, but median OS remains poor with literature-reported ranges of approximately 10 to 11 months and PFS of approximately six months. The presence of FGFR2b overexpression is present in approximately 10% of patients with GC/GEJ and is associated with a worse prognosis. Few treatment options following progression are available after first-line chemotherapy, and a significant unmet need remains in the treatment of GC/GEJ worldwide.

Five Prime is developing companion diagnostics to identify FGFR2b overexpression using an immunohistochemistry (IHC) test and FGFR2 gene amplification using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis. Five Prime will use both assays to select patients for the FIGHT trial.

About Bemarituzumab

Bemarituzumab is a first-in-class, isoform-selective, humanized monoclonal antibody in clinical development as a targeted immunotherapy for tumors that overexpress FGFR2b, a splice variant of a receptor for some members of the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family. Bemarituzumab blocks FGFs 7, 10 and 22 from binding to FGFR2b, and has been engineered for enhanced antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) to increase direct tumor cell killing by recruiting natural killer (NK) cells. Clinical results to date suggest that the specificity of bemarituzumab avoids the dose-limiting toxicities that have been seen with less selective pan-FGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors that act on multiple FGFRs, including FGFR2.

In December 2017, Five Prime and Zai Lab announced a strategic collaboration for the development and commercialization of bemarituzumab in Greater China.

On October 1, 2018 PharmaCyte Biotech, Inc. (OTCQB: PMCB), a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on developing targeted cellular therapies for cancer and diabetes using its signature live-cell encapsulation technology, Cell-in-a-Box, reported that it has successfully determined the modified site and chromosome location of the cytochrome P450-2B1 gene in the DNA of the genetically altered human cells known as 22P1G that will be encapsulated and used together with the cancer prodrug ifosfamide in PharmaCyte’s upcoming clinical trial (Press release, PharmaCyte Biotech, OCT 1, 2018, View Source [SID1234529683]). The cytochrome P450-2B1 gene is responsible for producing the enzyme that activates the ifosfamide into its cancer-killing form. The "integration site" information from this study was another requirement requested by the FDA. The site of integration was to be defined and included in PharmaCyte’s Investigational New Drug Application (IND) before the start of the clinical trial for the treatment of locally advanced, non-metastatic, inoperable pancreatic cancer (LAPC).

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PharmaCyte’s Chief Executive Officer, Kenneth L. Waggoner, said, "This study answers one of the key questions that was raised in our pre-IND meeting with the FDA. It represents the culmination of a long, complicated and expensive series of experiments as well as interpretation of a plethora of data that was generated over the last 12 months and is congruent with earlier data that we generated. Without these findings, we would be unable to submit our IND to the FDA, so this completed study moves us a significant step closer to submitting our IND to the FDA."

The study was an exceedingly complicated one that involved the latest cutting-edge techniques such as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) as well as more classical techniques of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis and DNA sequencing. The comprehensive and voluminous set of data that was generated from these tests was subjected to a robust and multi-faceted analysis. In addition to providing a better characterization of the cells at the DNA level, this analysis has revealed that the cytochrome P450-2B1 expression construct is located on human chromosome 9 in PharmaCyte’s 22P1G cell line. Additional analyses have revealed that the location of the construct is in a benign region of the human genome that should be "safe." This supports the previous conclusion that the 22P1G cells have a good safety profile.

The data obtained from the in-depth analyses also confirm data that has been previously announced by PharmaCyte that concerned enzymatic assays and Southern blotting analyses (a method used in molecular biology for detection of specific DNA sequence in DNA samples) of the 22P1G cells.

On October 1, 2018 Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:KERX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on bringing innovative medicines to people with kidney disease, reported that it will participate in the Ladenburg Thalmann 2018 Healthcare Conference on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 in New York (Press release, Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, OCT 1, 2018, View Source/news-releases/news-release-details/keryx-biopharmaceuticals-announces-participation-upcoming-2" target="_blank" title="View Source/news-releases/news-release-details/keryx-biopharmaceuticals-announces-participation-upcoming-2" rel="nofollow">View Source [SID1234529682]).

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At the conference, Keryx will be participating in a 25 minute panel discussion titled Renal Anemia on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time at the Sofitel New York in New York City.

A live audio webcast of both the panel discussion will be accessible from Keryx’s website at View Source within the Investor Relations section under "events and presentations." An archived version of the webcast will be available for at least 15 days following the conclusion of the panel discussion.

On September 30, 2018 Tocagen Inc. (Nasdaq: TOCA), a clinical-stage, cancer-selective gene therapy company, today is presenting data describing the tumor microenvironment and immunogenicity of Toca 511 (vocimagene amiretrorepvec) & Toca FC (flucytosine, extended-release) in patients with solid tumor malignancies at the International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference (CIMT) (Free CIMT Whitepaper) hosted by The Cancer Research Institute (CRI), the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT) (Free CIMT Whitepaper), the European Academy of Tumor Immunology (EATI), and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) in New York City (Press release, Tocagen, SEP 30, 2018, View Source;p=RssLanding&cat=news&id=2369481 [SID1234529699]). The lead author is Jaime Merchan, M.D., director, Phase 1 clinical trials program at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center; associate professor of medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

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The poster describes data available as of August 31st for 20 patients with advanced solid tumors, including colorectal, sarcoma, pancreas and non-small cell lung cancer, treated with intravenous Toca 511 followed by oral Toca FC in the Phase 1b Toca 6 clinical trial. Among these patients, 15 also received Toca 511 via intratumoral administration.

In this preliminary analysis of immune activation in patients with advanced solid tumors, analysis of peripheral blood shows immune cell modulation that is consistent with what has been observed in preclinical studies and in patients with recurrent high grade glioma treated with Toca 511 & Toca FC in previous clinical trials. In addition, available tumor samples from three patients show Toca 511 infected both "hot" (T cells present) and "cold" (T cells low or absent) areas of metastatic tumor, suggesting Toca 511 can penetrate multiple tumor microenvironments. Toca 511 & Toca FC treatment was well tolerated.

"The encouraging preliminary immune activity data from the Toca 6 trial continue to support the proposed mechanism of action for Toca 511 & Toca FC and its potentbiial in the treatment of multiple cancers," said Asha Das, M.D., chief medical officer of Tocagen. "We look forward to advancing expansion opportunities for our lead product in patients with solid tumors."

CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR Abstract/Poster Number: A018
Abstract Title: Effects of Toca 511 & Toca FC on tumor microenvironment and peripheral blood populations in patients with advanced malignancies
Date: Sunday, September 30, 2018
Time: 11:45 a.m. – 2:15 p.m. ET
The poster is available on Tocagen’s website.

About Toca 6
Toca 6 is a multi-center, open-label Phase 1b study evaluating Toca 511 & Toca FC in patients with advanced solid tumors. The study will evaluate the safety and presence of Toca 511 genes in tumors of patients with widely disseminated disease, immunologic activity in blood and tumor, and clinical activity such as tumor response and clinical benefit. More information can be found at www.tocagen.com/toca6 or by searching clinicaltrials.gov using the clinical trial identifier NCT02576665.

About Toca 511 & Toca FC
Tocagen’s lead product candidate is a two-part cancer-selective immunotherapy comprising an investigational biologic, Toca 511, and an investigational small molecule, Toca FC. Toca 511 is a retroviral replicating vector (RRV) that selectively infects cancer cells and delivers a gene for the enzyme, cytosine deaminase (CD). Through this targeted delivery, only infected cancer cells carry the CD gene and produce CD. Toca FC is an orally administered prodrug, 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC), which is converted into an anti-cancer drug, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), when it encounters CD. 5-FU kills cancer cells and immune-suppressive myeloid cells resulting in anti-cancer immune activation and subsequent tumor killing.

On October 29, 2018 Euronext Paris: FR0010331421 – IPH), reported new data from the Phase I clinical trial of IPH4102 in patients with relapsed/refractory cutaneous T-cell lymphomas (CTCL) (Press release, Innate Pharma, SEP 29, 2018, View Source [SID1234530303]). The data, including longer follow up for patients treated in the dose-escalation and observations from an additional patient cohort, will be presented today at the EORTC Cutaneous Lymphoma Group meeting in St. Gallen, Switzerland, by Pr Martine Bagot, Principal Investigator and Head of the Dermatology Department at the Saint-Louis Hospital, Paris. IPH4102 is Innate Pharma’s wholly-owned first-in-class anti-KIR3DL2 antibody, designed for treatment of T-cell lymphoma.

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"These data support the positive trends observed in the dose-escalation part of the trial and demonstrated a high response rate and long progression-free survival for these heavily pretreated CTCL patients, a majority being Sézary syndrome," commented Pierre Dodion, Chief Medical Officer of Innate Pharma. "Additionally, these data will serve as a basis for the initiation of a broader Phase II clinical program in Sézary syndrome and other subtypes of T-cell lymphomas. We look forward to providing more insight into the data and subsequent clinical development plans in the near future."

As of June 28, 2018, a total of 44 patients with relapsed/refractory CTCL were evaluable for safety and clinical activity. The study consisted of two parts: a dose-escalation (n=25) and a cohort expansion (n=19). Patients received a median of 3 prior systemic therapies. IPH4102 demonstrated a favorable safety profile and was well-tolerated. The study showed clinical activity that was demonstrated by a high response rate and long progression free survival.

In the total study population, the objective response rate (ORR) was 36% and median duration of response (DOR) and progression free survival (PFS) were 13.8 and 8.2 months, respectively. Sézary syndrome (SS) subset patients treated in the dose-escalation part (n=20) now show median PFS of close to 1 year. At the cut-off date of June 28, 2018, median follow-up was 12.7 months and nine patients were still ongoing treatment.

Better outcomes were observed in patients without evidence of histologic large cell transformation (LCT) (n=29); these patients achieved an ORR of 51.7% and PFS of 12.8 months. LCT is present in approximatively 10% of all Mycosis fungoides/Sézary syndrome patients* and is associated with poorer prognosis and shorter survival using currently available therapies.

"This patient population remains a high unmet medical need as they continue to progress through several lines of treatments," commented Pr Martine Bagot, Principal Investigator. "The patients with complete response, partial response and even those with stable disease showed an improvement in quality of life parameters overtime including pruritus. IPH4102’s encouraging clinical activity provides substantial support to explore its potential therapeutic benefits not only in SS patients but also in other T cell lymphoma patient populations. Together with a favorable safety profile, IPH4102 could emerge as a key therapeutic option in aggressive T-cell lymphomas."