Faron Phramaceuticals Ltd (LON:FARN) chief executive hailed as remarkable, the results of the first in-person trial for its Clevegen cancer immunotherapy treatment.
The first two patients dosed showed marked increases in natural killer (NK) cells and T-Cells, the body’s first lines of defence.
READ: Faron Pharma makes encouraging start in Clevegen solid tumour trial
A single dose of Clevegen increased patients' blood CD8+ cells and their CD8+/CD4+ ratio by 24% and 15% respectively.
The third person treated showed similar responses but at significantly faster and higher rates.
These are people who have had numerous previous treatments and are in the last stages of the disease, said Markku Jalkanen, chief executive.
He had expected to see some improvement but not results such as these from first dosing, he told Proactive.
“Previously we had believed it was impossible to reactive the T-Cells within the cancer patients so these results are quite incredible,” he said.
PD-1 inhibitors are known to affect T-cells but only the existing ones, now it has a tool to reactivate them to recognise the tumour and build another line of defence.
There is a queue of companies waiting to see the full set of in-human data, he added, with a number in discussions with Faron about partnering on Clevegen.
“By the summer of this year, we should have a lot of questions answered.
"With a partner, we want to expand the trial into other cancer areas and as a combination therapy as well as a mono-immunotherapy."
The MATINS trial is a Phase I/II clinical study to investigate the safety and efficacy of Clevegen on selected metastatic/inoperable solid tumours in melanoma, hepatobiliary/hepatocellular, pancreatic, ovarian and colorectal cancers.
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