On March 7, 2022 Kinnate Biopharma Inc. (Nasdaq: KNTE) ("Kinnate"), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of small molecule kinase inhibitors for difficult-to-treat, genomically defined cancers, reported the presentation of findings from a collaborative study with Tempus investigating the prevalence of Class II and Class III alterations among patients with BRAF-mutated solid tumors (Press release, Kinnate Biopharma, MAR 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234609596]). These findings were presented as an e-Poster at the virtual European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) (Free ESMO Whitepaper) Targeted Anticancer Therapies Congress (TAT), taking place March 7-9, 2022.

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"Advances in genomic profiling have significantly increased our ability to define emerging patient populations, and enable the development of effective targeted therapies for patients who do not currently benefit from precision medicine approaches," said Richard Williams, MBBS, Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer at Kinnate. "Through our collaboration with Tempus, and other leading precision medicine companies, we have found that there is a substantial number of cancer patients with BRAF Class II or Class III alterations, none of whom have access to approved targeted cancer therapies. We appreciate the opportunity to share insights on this urgent unmet need with the clinical research community gathered for the ESMO (Free ESMO Whitepaper) TAT 2022 conference."

This study utilized a de-identified clinico-genomic database of more than 55,000 cancer patients whose tumors were profiled using the Tempus xT next generation sequencing assay, a 648-gene DNA panel coupled with transcriptome RNA sequencing. A cohort of more than 1,100 patients was identified with BRAF Class II or Class III oncogenic alterations representing approximately 2% of patients. Among the patients with BRAF Class II or Class III alterations, those diagnosed with melanoma or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were most commonly treated with immunotherapy or chemotherapy +/- immunotherapy, respectively. At least 70% of patients with BRAF alterations had stage IV (metastatic) disease, and the distribution of cancer stages was similar across BRAF classes. Compared to BRAF Class I alterations, BRAF Class II and Class III alterations were more likely to co-occur with other gene alterations in the MAPK pathway such as NRAS, KRAS and NF1. Within the NSCLC and melanoma cohort, tumors with BRAF Class II or Class III alterations had a higher tumor mutation burden (TMB) than BRAF wild-type tumors. Additionally, patients with NSCLC and Class II or Class III alterations experienced shorter time to treatment discontinuation in first line and second line of therapy compared to patients with NSCLC and BRAF Class I alterations which is suggestive of inferior treatment outcomes.

"These findings are of particular interest given that BRAF Class II and Class III alterations are prevalent oncogenic drivers with no approved targeted therapy. Tumors with BRAF Class II or Class III alterations have been shown to be associated with unique tumor characteristics, including higher TMB and more frequent co-occurrence with other MAPK pathway alterations. Our real-world data study indicates that patients with NSCLC and BRAF Class II or Class III alterations experience shorter time to treatment discontinuation relative to patients with NSCLC and BRAF Class I alterations," said Paul Severson, Ph.D., Senior Director of Translational Medicine and Bioinformatics at Kinnate.

The e-Poster (Presentation #40P), titled "Real-World Clinical Genomic Analysis of Patients with BRAF Mutated Cancers Identifies BRAF Class II and III as a Population of Unmet Medical Need," will be presented by Dr. Severson and is available to registered attendees for on-demand viewing at: www.esmo.org/meetings/esmo-tat-2022.