“Ongoing clinical trials of nadunolimab have shown encouraging efficacy signals. As the spread of metastases is a very serious component of the cancer disease, these new data are truly exciting and increase our knowledge of nadunolimab's mechanism of action,” said Göran Forsberg, CEO of Cantargia.

Nadunolimab is an IL1RAP-binding antibody with a dual mechanism of action; it stimulates killing of tumor cells via antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) and blocks tumor-promoting signaling via the molecules IL-1alpha and IL-1beta. The preclinical data presented at AACR 2023 support the significance of these functions and show that a nadunolimab surrogate antibody potently reduced the number of lung metastases in two different in vivo tumor models.

The metastatic microenvironment contains various tumor-supporting immune cells capable of facilitating tumor establishment and growth. Detailed analyses of the metastatic lung tissue showed large accumulation of immune cells with higher levels of IL1RAP, the target of nadunolimab, compared to healthy tissue. Notably, the nadunolimab surrogate was shown to modify the lung microenvironment by altering levels of various markers which could potentially affect the accumulation and function of tumor-supporting immune cells. These effects on the metastatic microenvironment provide important insights into nadunolimab’s anti-metastatic properties.

These preclinical data are presented in detail at AACR 2023 in a poster with more information found below, and are now also available on Cantargia’s webpage (https://cantargia.com/en/research-development/publications). The abstract for this presentation was previously disclosed and can be found here.

Published abstract number: 6429
Abstract title: A surrogate to the anti-IL1RAP antibody nadunolimab induces tumor microenvironment changes to the metastatic lung and reduces metastatic lesions in mouse models of metastatic cancer
Session category: Immunology
Session title: Immunotherapy Strategies and Mechanisms
Session date and time: Wednesday Apr 19, 2023 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM ET
Presenter: Dr. Elin Jaensson Gyllenbäck

Nadunolimab is currently investigated clinically in pancreatic cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and triple-negative breast cancer in combination with chemotherapy. Positive interim data from the combination with chemotherapy indicate stronger efficacy than would be expected from chemotherapy alone. A clinical phase II/III trial of nadunolimab in combination with chemotherapy in pancreatic cancer is currently in preparation.