Faron Pharmaceuticals Ltd has reported more data indicating longer survival rates for late-stage cancer sufferers treated with its new drug bexmarilimab.
Updated results from the ongoing phase I/II MATINS trial showed 70% of patients receiving the drug had survived nine months compared with 26% for those not treated.
Faron said that the most encouraging survival rates among the 110 Phase II patients were seen in cutaneous melanoma (30%), gastric cancer (30%), cholangiocarcinoma (30%), hepatocellular carcinoma (40%) and breast cancer (40%) patients.
Importantly, Faron added that simple and inexpensive blood tests could identify the biomarkers in patients likely to lead to the most clinical benefit from treatment.
"The updated MATINS data shows even more clearly that heavily pre-treated, late-stage cancer patients who receive clinical benefit from bexmarilimab can achieve long term survival," said Marie-Louise Fjällskog, Faron's Chief Medical Officer.
"The ongoing biomarker analysis is also helping us better identify which patients are likely to respond and what happens in the tumour microenvironment when patients are treated with bexmarilimab."
Jalkanen is hosting a virtual R&D Day webcast later today (4.00PM UK time) to explain the significance of the results and that can ban be accessed here.
"Our accelerated bexmarilimab development plan, which in addition to the ongoing MATINS trial includes plans to study bexmarilimab in combination with other checkpoint inhibitors and as a treatment for hematological malignancies, is ambitious, but given the data we have seen to date and our evolving understanding of which biomarkers will predict response to treatment, we are confident that we can progress each of these programs forward and potentially have an extremely broad impact on cancer care," she added.