Netris Pharma doses first patient in pancreatic cancer study
pharmafile | March 29, 2023 | News story | Research and Development |
Netris Pharma has announced that it has dosed its first patient in the Lap-NET1 study for the safety and efficacy of anti-netrin-1 antibody NP137 in combination with mFOLFIRINOX as a first-line treatment for patients with locally advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Netris Pharma is a clinical stage private biopharmaceutical company focused on developing a new class of drugs based on dependence receptor biology. It has developed the anti-netrin-1 antibody, NP137, which will be used in combination with mfolfiRINOX as a first line treatment for patients with locally advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
The Lap-NET1 study will enrol 43 to 52 patients, and will assess the safety and efficacy of the drug in a safety lead-in phase including 3-12 patients and an expansion phase with 40 additional patients assessing the drug’s efficacy.
Patrick Mehlen, CEO of Netris Pharma, commented: “The start of the Lap-NET1 trial is a new important clinical milestone for NETRIS Pharma, and our fourth clinical trial currently recruiting. Pancreatic cancer is very complex to treat. However, in close collaboration with US colleagues, we demonstrated that netrin-1 is a key regulator of pancreatic cancer progression. Our lead drug candidate, NP137, which targets netrin-1, is effective in controlling disease progression in a variety of preclinical models. When combined with chemotherapies, NP137 has also been shown to alleviate the cancer’s resistance to these conventional treatments. Thus, there is a strong interest to investigate the potential of combining NP137 with mFOLFIRINOX, currently used as a first-line treatment for pancreatic cancers.”
Dr Roth, clinical oncologist at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Grenoble Alpes (CHUGA) and principal investigator of LapNET-1, added: “Although pancreatic cancer patient care is improving, primarily given the earlier detection or tumors, and the benefit of mFOLFIRINOX as standard of care in Western Europe, this difficult to treat disease is on the rise, with incidence prediction studies suggesting that it will eventually represent the 2nd leading cause of cancer-related death in Western countries. I look forward to lead this clinical trial, given the strong scientific rationale of combining NP137 with mFOLFIRINOX.”
Betsy Goodfellow
