Turning cold tumors hot, Checkmate Pharma outlines its initial success story at #AACR18
Merck wasn’t the only winner to emerge at AACR this year.
Art Krieg’s Checkmate Pharmaceuticals attracted considerable buzz for the biotech’s key proof-of-concept data on CMP-001, its TLR9 agonist designed to turn cold tumors hot and light them up for a checkpoint assault.
The Cambridge, MA-based biotech has gathered data on 69 patients in the ITT crowd whose melanoma proved resistant to a PD-1 assault. In that group, they recorded a 22% objective response rate with 2 complete and 13 partial responses for patients treated with a combination of the Checkmate drug plus Keytruda. Given that checkpoints are generally effective in about 1 out of 5 cases, demonstrating a potential to expand the population by roughly the same amount would be a significant improvement in the field — provided the data hold up.
Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.
You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.