Affimed narrows PhI/IIa focus; Bristol Myers pays Agenus $25M; Merck, Moderna start another PhIII cancer vaccine

Plus, news on No­var­tis’ re­cent­ly-ap­proved ip­ta­co­pan and Acurx’s an­tibi­ot­ic.

Af­fimed drops some in­di­ca­tions from PhI/IIa tri­al: As the biotech re­ports promis­ing mid-stage da­ta for its in­nate cell en­gager AFM24 in non-small cell lung can­cer, the com­pa­ny has de­cid­ed to cut off en­roll­ment in the oth­er co­horts of the tri­al to stay fo­cused. That in­cludes a gas­tric can­cer co­hort and a bas­ket co­hort in pan­cre­at­ic can­cer, bil­iary tract can­cer and he­pa­to­cel­lu­lar car­ci­no­ma, which showed some clin­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty that was, how­ev­er, un­like­ly to meet its bar, Af­fimed said. The tri­al was test­ing AFM24, which binds to EGFR and CD16A, in com­bi­na­tion with Roche’s PD-L1 in­hibitor Tecen­triq in EGFR-ex­press­ing sol­id tu­mors. — Am­ber Tong

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