On September 26, 2022 CatalYm reported that it has received Investigational New Drug (IND) clearance from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand its ongoing Phase 2 clinical program to include clinical trial centers in the U.S. The ongoing GDFATHER-2 program (GDF-15-neutralizing antibody-mediated human effector cell relocation) is evaluating the company’s lead candidate, visugromab in combination with an anti-PD1 antibody in patients with advanced solid tumors that are relapsed/refractory to prior anti-PD1/-PD-L1 treatment (Press release, Catalym, SEP 26, 2022, View Source [SID1234621416]). Visugromab is a monoclonal antibody that neutralizes GDF-15, a key immunosuppressor, which has been shown to prevent T cell migration into tumors, enabling cancerous cells to evade the immune system.
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"Adding trial sites in the U.S. is a critical component of our clinical development strategy for visugromab and we appreciate receiving this IND approval," said Prof. Dr. Eugen Leo, Chief Medical Officer at CatalYm. "Our focus is to rapidly advance the GDFATHER-2 program and we have now gained the opportunity to enroll a more diverse set of cancer patients. We are planning to further maximize the potential of this program with additional cohorts and trial modalities in the future."
Dr. Phil L’Huillier, Chief Executive Officer at CatalYm added: "The IND clearance demonstrates our ability to execute on our clinical objectives and heralds the next stage of our journey toward developing visugromab as a new class of anti-cancer immunotherapeutic treatment. We look forward to working with our clinical partners in the United States and to announcing initial results from the first ongoing Phase 2a cohorts by mid 2023."
The multi-center, open-label, cohort expansion GDFATHER-2 trial (NCT04725474) investigates the treatment of advanced stage cancer patients that are relapsed/refractory to prior anti-PD-1/-PD-L1 treatment with the GDF-15 neutralizing antibody, visugromab, in combination with the anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor nivulomab. The GDFATHER-2a program will enroll up to 164 participants aged 18 years or older, who are relapsed or refractory to prior anti-PD-1/-PD-L1 treatment, at clinical centers across Europe and the United States. Phase 2a is currently recruiting at locations in Germany, Spain and Switzerland. Recruitment in the United States is expected to begin before end of 2022.
The full data readout from the visugromab Phase 1 trial, GDFATHER-1, was recently presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) (Free ESMO Whitepaper) Congress 2022 and demonstrated encouraging signs of efficacy in a last-line patient setting with a favorable safety profile.