“The results generated in non-small cell lung cancer indicate promising treatment effects of nadunolimab in combination with existing therapies. Based on our new strong data in pancreatic cancer, in the context of the highly competitive lung cancer market, it is logical to apply a more focused strategy aiming for a large treatment benefit in a subgroup of patients,” said Göran Forsberg, CEO of Cantargia.

Nadunolimab has demonstrated promising clinical efficacy and good safety in combination with chemotherapy in patients with pancreatic cancer (PDAC), triple-negative breast cancer or NSCLC. Tumor and blood biomarkers from over 40 NSCLC patients will be evaluated during 2023 with the goal of identifying subgroups with the best responses to guide further clinical development steps in this indication. This is similar to the recent progress of nadunolimab in PDAC and is intended to maximize the potential of nadunolimab in NSCLC and increase the likelihood of success for the program.

Competition in the lung cancer market has greatly intensified over recent years due to changes in standard treatment strategies and an increased number of clinical trials. Consequently, recruitment of lung cancer patients to clinical trials has become even more challenging and there is a general need for more personalized treatment strategies and patient segmentation.

Promising interim efficacy has been shown for the 30 first- or second-line NSCLC patients treated with nadunolimab and cisplatin/gemcitabine in the CANFOUR trial; the strongest responses were observed in the non-squamous subtype with a higher response rate and longer duration of response than expected for chemotherapy alone based on historical data. Ten additional non-squamous NSCLC patients were treated with nadunolimab and carboplatin/pemetrexed and enrollment to CANFOUR has now been concluded following a successful safety review. The combination was generally well tolerated and no new side effects except those expected from chemotherapy or nadunolimab alone were observed. Updated safety and efficacy data from the NSCLC patients in CANFOUR will be presented at a conference in Q2 2023. Additional NSCLC patients in the third-line or beyond have been treated with nadunolimab and chemotherapy in the CESTAFOUR trial. NSCLC patients also received nadunolimab in combination with Keytruda® in the CIRIFOUR trial.