Immutep jumps 14% on mid-stage data for lead asset in lung cancer
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Australian biotech Immutep Limited (NASDAQ:IMMP) added ~14% pre-market Wednesday after announcing that lung cancer patients who received its lead candidate efti, in combination with Merck’s (NYSE:MRK) Keytruda, recorded a median overall survival rate of 25 months.
The Phase 2 TACTI-002 trial, conducted in partnership with Merck (MRK), is designed to evaluate efti, also known as eftilagimod alpha, with anti-PD-1 therapy Keytruda (pembrolizumab).
The results from patients with non-small cell lung cancer (1L NSCLC) indicated that in the overall intent-to-treat (ITT) population, the treatment combo led to an initial median OS of 25 months as a first-line option in those with >1% PD-L1 expression.
According to Immutep (IMMP), the results are better than the OS rates reported for anti-PD-1 monotherapy and different immune checkpoint inhibitor combinations in patients with a similar level of PD-L1 expression with and without chemotherapy.
Given that TACTI-002 has a minimum follow-up of 14 months and after considering the readout, the Data Monitoring Committee has recommended extending the OS follow-up data collection to find three-year and potentially 5-year survival rates.
The company expects to disclose more mature data from the study at a leading medical conference in H2 2023.