AACR: Little Apexigen steals the show with their CD40/Opdivo cocktail as AACR gets underway
Now that the pioneer PD-1 checkpoints have hit the market and started earning their billions, researchers in oncology are focused on the next big thing in cancer R&D: using new combinations to reach tumors that remain stubbornly resistant to approved therapies.
To that end, you can count Apexigen as the early winner in the AACR meeting in Atlanta.
A group of investigators organized by The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in partnership with the Cancer Research Institute conducted an early-stage clinical trial that combined a pair of chemotherapies with Apexigen’s CD40 drug APX005M, with or without Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo. In the first part of the Phase I trial for advanced pancreatic cancer, they wanted to see how CD40 — designed to spur an immune attack — worked with a PD-1, which is designed to take the brakes off an immune system attack.
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