Faron Pharmaceuticals Oy (LON:FARN) (NASDAQFIRSTNORTH:FARON) said it has selected AGC Biologics as the contract manufacturer for Clevegen, its clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy candidate.
AGC will help support the expansion of trials to assess the treatment’s safety profile and potential efficacy in nine different cancer types.
Faron’s chief executive, Dr Markku Jalkanen, said the tie-up would provide flexible and cost-efficient manufacturing.
It will also “fulfil the growing need in our clinical development programme while ensuring rapid and regulatory ready scale-up of the production for future potential commercial needs”, he added in a statement.
“This will be important to progress, alongside the clinical development of Clevegen, and will support our discussions with global regulators as part of the end of phase II meetings for Clevegen,” Jalkanen explained.
Faron was given the green light to broaden the scope of its phase I/II cancer trial with Clevegen in March after a review of the interim data. The MATINS study of the immunotherapy will take in seven further strains of the disease besides the two already assessed - colorectal and ovarian.
An assessment of 30 patients looking into the drug’s tolerability, safety and efficacy found that all bar those receiving the lowest levels of the treatment were subject to dose-related immune activation.
As previously flagged, there were two partial responses to Clevegen and seven cases of stable disease. It should be pointed out that Faron’s team was working with people with inoperable tumours.