On December 16 2021 BerGenBio ASA (OSE:BGBIO), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel, selective AXL inhibitors for severe unmet medical needs, reported the licensing of certain intellectual property from the UT Southwestern Medical Center (Press release, BerGenBio, DEC 16, 2021, View Source [SID1234597352]). The exclusive license to intellectual property generated by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center supports the Company’s existing IP position underlying use of AXL inhibitors, including its lead product candidate bemcentinib, for the treatment of patients harboring STK11 mutations in NSCLC. No financial terms have been disclosed.

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The STK11 mutation is observed in up to 20% of NSCLC patients. STK11 is an important tumor suppressor gene associated with a poor prognosis in NSCLC patients and which has been reported in some studies to confer resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Researchers at the UT Southwestern Medical Center and BerGenBio recently presented data at the 2021 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) (Free SITC Whitepaper) 36th Annual Meeting exploring why patients harboring a mutation to the STK11 gene may not respond to anti-PD1 therapy, a commonly used treatment in first line NSCLC patients. Preclinical research further indicated that the addition of the selective AXL inhibitor bemcentinib restored the activity of anti-PD1 treatment in relevant lung cancer models

Martin Olin, Chief Executive Officer at BerGenBio, commented: "The license agreement with UT Southwestern Medical Center complements our existing intellectual property filings in this important patient population which appears to poorly respond to anti-PD1 therapy. We will continue to explore how this target group might be addressed by the combination of bemcentinib and an immune checkpoint inhibitor."