AstraZeneca has partnered with Bavarian Nordic, a Kvistgaard, Denmark-based biopharmaceutical company, to investigate Bavarian’s targeted immunotherapy candidate, CV301, and durvalumab, AstraZeneca’s programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) inhibitor, in combination with maintenance chemotherapy for patients with metastatic colorectal or pancreatic cancers.

Under this collaboration with Georgetown University, both Bavarian Nordic and AstraZeneca will contribute clinical trial material and provide financial support for a planned Phase I/II clinical study.

The Phase I/II trial is expected to begin with a lead-in study to determine the safety and tolerability of the combination as well as the recommended Phase II dose of durvalumab in combination with CV301 and chemotherapy. The Phase II portion of the study is expected to consist of two parallel trials, enrolling up to 26 patients for each disease setting. The primary endpoint for both arms of the study will be progression-free survival with multiple secondary endpoints, including objective response rate, overall survival, and disease control rate.

In addition to durvalumab, CV301 is being investigated in combination with other immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as Merck & Co.’s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in non-small cell lung cancer and Roche’s Tecentriq (atezolizumab) in bladder cancer. Keytruda had 2017 sales of $3.8 billion. and Tecentriq had 2017 sales of CHF 487 million ($519 million).

Source: Bavarian Nordic