Research carried out by a Finnish university has showed that immunotherapies such as Faron Pharmaceuticals Ltd’s (LON:FARN) Clevegen can work to kill cancer cells.
The University of Turku researchers found that blocking Clever-1 – a surface cell receptor involved in cancer growth and spread – reactivated suppressed immune cells, encouraging them to attack and kill tumours.
Faron’s Clevegen, which is currently undergoing its first in-human trials, is one of this class of treatment, called anti-Clever-1 antibodies.
READ: Faron doses first patient in Clevegen trial
The data, published in the Clinical Cancer Research journal, showed that blocking Clever-1 had a “synergistic anti-tumour benefit”.
Unlike anti-PD-1 therapies – another hot topic in the world of cancer treatment at the moment – anti-Clever-1 did not lead to the exhaustion of cancer-fighting T Cells.
“We are very pleased about these published results by Faron's scientific network,” said chief executive Markku Jalkanen.
“We believe that the next significant step in cancer treatment is based on biomarker-guided use of selective immunotherapeutic drugs, alone or in combination.
“Faron's investigational immunotherapeutic, Clevegen, provides a unique new feature to these options by removing immune suppression from the tumour environment and potentially increasing efficacy of immunotherapy checkpoint molecules.”
He added: “We hope to see supportive biomarker changes in our MATINS trial patients during the first half of 2019 while we advance development of Clevegen as a novel therapy for patients with currently untreatable solid cancers.”
Faron shares rose 7.6% to 63.5p on Wednesday morning.