Genexine said Wednesday that its poster presentation has won the approval from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the world’s largest anticancer society.

The company conducted the clinical trials of the combined use of its Hyleukin-7 and Merck Sharp and Dohme’s anti-pd-1 therapy, Keytruda, (Ingredient: pembrolizumab) to treat recurrent and metastatic triple-negative metastatic breast cancer.

Genexine will present the preliminary results of phase 1b and 2 clinical trials through online conference from May 29. The presentation is significant, as it is the first clinical trial of combination therapy of Hyleukin-7 and an immune checkpoint inhibitor.

Genexine developed Hyleukin-7 by applying its long-acting platform, hyFc technology, on Interleukin-7, a fusion protein.

Genexine said it has greatly increased Hyleukin-7’s half-life and the ability to amplify the number of T cells in the body. The company also expects to improve antitumor effect through combination therapy with various anticancer medicines.

The company released the result of Hyrukin-7 on an end-stage solid cancer patient at the Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer 2019 in Maryland, U.S., in 2019. Repeated single administrations showed that Hyleukin-7 had excellent tolerability and effectively amplified T cells, a key immune cell in anticancer mechanisms depending on their capacity.

Triple-negative breast cancer patients grow their cancer faster than other types of cancer patients and also have a shorter overall survival time. The treatment rate of immuno-gateway inhibitors is about 5.3 percent in relapsed patients who have failed primary or more anti-cancer treatment.

The combination therapy trial evaluated the safety of using Hyleukin-7 along with Keytruda, effective amplification of T cell, and anticancer efficacy in the therapy,

Genexine led the study with the support of the Korea Drug Development Fund to evaluate the safety and anti-tumor activity of Hyleukin-7 and Keytruda in combination therapy.

shim531@docdocdoc.co.kr

<© Korea Biomedical Review, All rights reserved.>