Aslan Pharmaceuticals updates timeline for trial of varlitinib plus capecitabine

ASLAN Pharmaceuticals announced an update to its planned timelines for the ongoing single-arm clinical trial in China testing varlitinib plus capecitabine in patients with advanced or metastatic biliary tract cancer. The open-label study planned to enrol 68 patients with BTC who had progressed on at least one line of prior chemotherapy. Based on a review of patients recruited to-date and discussions with key investigators, it was agreed that a protocol amendment should be submitted to local authorities to modify enrolment criteria and to ensure the study will provide an accurate evaluation of varlitinib’s efficacy. Review and implementation of the voluntary amendment is expected to take approximately 4 months. In the interim, ASLAN will continue to recruit patients into the study and provide a further update on study timelines in early 2019. ASLAN’s global pivotal study in second line BTC, TREETOPP, remains on track to complete patient enrolment in early 2019. TREETOPP is a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial in second line BTC comparing varlitinib and capecitabine to placebo and capecitabine. If positive, data from the TREETOPP study will be used in regulatory approval submissions for varlitinib globally. Patients enrolled into the second line study in China appear to have performed significantly worse, prior to recruitment, in the first line setting than observed in published global studies. In the first 27 patients enrolled, the first line response rate was approximately 7% and progression free survival (PFS) was 2.7 months. In comparison, the ABC-021 study that compared cisplatin plus gemcitabine to gemcitabine alone, the current standard of care for first line treatment of patients with advanced BTC, showed a first line response rate of 26% and PFS of 8 months for patients on cisplatin and gemcitabine. In the 14 patients that received a 6-week scan in the study, 1 partial response and 6 patients with stable disease were reported based on site assessment. For the same 14 patients in the first line setting, there were 2 partial responses and 4 patients with stable disease.

https://thefly.com/landingPageNews.php?id=2791079