Nektar Therapeutics shares were up 5% to $17.10 after the company said it entered into a new oncology clinical collaboration with Merck KGaA and Pfizer Inc.
The deal is for the company to evaluate the maintenance regimen of NKTR-255, Nektar's interleukin-15 receptor agonist, in combination with avelumab, a PD-L1 inhibitor, in patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma in a Phase II study.
NKTR-255 is wholly owned by Nektar and is currently being evaluated in two separate clinical studies in both liquid and solid tumors. The novel IL-15 agonist is designed to activate the IL-15 pathway to expand both natural killer cells and memory CD8+ T cell populations.
Avelumab, which is marketed in the U.S. as Bavencio, is co-developed and co-commercialized by Merck KGaA and Pfizer Inc.
Under the new collaboration, Merck KGaA and Pfizer Inc. will include the combination of NKTR-255 plus avelumab in the study. Nektar will supply NKTR-255 for the trial. Nektar and the Merck KGaA-Pfizer alliance will each maintain existing global commercial rights to their respective medicines. The study is expected to begin enrolling patients in the first quarter of 2022.
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