BioLineRx Ltd. (NASDAQ: BLRX) (TASE: BLRX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on oncology and immunology, announced today partial results from the monotherapy portion of BL-8040's Phase 2a COMBAT study showing that BL-8040 increases infiltration of T cells into the tumor in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. The data will be presented as a poster titled "Evaluation of Pharmacodynamic Biomarkers in Patients with Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer Treated with BL-8040, a Novel CXCR4 Antagonist (Abstract 276)" at the ASCO 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, on January 19, 2018 in San Francisco, CA.
The partial results from the BL-8040 monotherapy portion of the COMBAT trial show that BL-8040 was safe and well-tolerated. BL-8040 also induced an increase in the number of total immune cells in the peripheral blood, while the frequency of peripheral blood regulatory T cells (Tregs), known to impede the anti-tumor immune response, was decreased. In addition, analysis of available biopsies (N = 7) showed infiltration of various types of effector T cells, known to attack cancer cells, into the tumor periphery and tumor micro-environment (TME). In this regard, the results show up to a 15-fold increase in CD3+ T cells, and up to a 2-fold increase in CD8+ T cells, in the TME of 43% (3/7) of the patients, after five days of BL-8040 monotherapy.
Dr. Manuel Hidalgo, Chief of Hematology Oncology and Co-Director of the Pancreatic Cancer Research Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, commented, "This is the first time we see results of BL-8040 in pancreatic cancer patients. The results of the monotherapy part of the COMBAT trial are extremely encouraging as they confirm the mechanism of action of BL-8040 in this difficult-to-treat patient population, resulting in T-cell infiltration into the tumor after only 5 days of monotherapy with BL-8040. These results support the rationale for combining BL-8040 with checkpoint inhibitors, and I am looking forward to the topline results of the COMBAT study expected later this year."
"The results show that BL-8040 induces robust infiltration of anti-tumor T cells into liver metastases in almost half of the pancreatic cancer patients who underwent a biopsy, effectively transforming these tumors from immunologically 'cold' to 'hot', which is seen as key in the objective of improving the responsiveness of patients with pancreatic cancer to front-line immunotherapy" stated Philip Serlin, Chief Executive Officer of BioLineRx. "These results support the mechanism of action proposed by pre-clinical studies, namely that BL-8040 mobilizes immune cells into the peripheral blood and promotes T cell infiltration into tumors. As previously reported, enrollment of the study has been completed and we expect to meet our timelines for conclusion of the study and topline results by the second half of 2018."
The Phase 2a study, named the COMBAT study, is an open-label, multicenter, single-arm trial designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the combination of BL-8040 and KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab), an anti-PD-1 therapy marketed by Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., USA (known as MSD outside the United States and Canada), in over 30 subjects with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The study is primarily designed to evaluate the clinical response, safety and tolerability of the combination of these therapies. In addition, the study evaluates multiple pharmacodynamic parameters, including the ability to increase infiltration of T cells into the tumor, for both BL-8040 as a monotherapy, as well as for the combination of BL-8040 and KEYTRUDA. The study is being conducted in the US, Israel and additional territories.
The COMBAT study is being conducted by BioLineRx under a collaboration agreement signed in 2016 between BioLineRx and MSD, through a subsidiary, to support a Phase 2a study investigating BioLineRx's BL-8040 in combination with KEYTRUDA in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.
BL-8040, BioLineRx's lead oncology platform, is a CXCR4 antagonist that has been shown in several clinical trials to be a robust mobilizer of immune cells to peripheral blood and to be effective at inducing direct tumor cell death. Additional findings have suggested that CXCR4 antagonists may be effective at increas...
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