NEW YORK – Ikena Oncology on Tuesday announced a clinical collaboration to study its TEAD inhibitor, IK-930, in combination with AstraZeneca's EGFR inhibitor Tagrisso (osimertinib) in EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer.
Ikena will study the combination in its ongoing Phase I trial exploring IK-930 in advanced solid tumors and start by enrolling patients with advanced EGFR-mutant NSCLC. Preclinical research has shown that the IK-930-Tagrisso combo improved anti-tumor activity in multiple EGFR-mutant tumor models. The combination therapy may be able to overcome resistance to EGFR inhibitors, Jeffrey Ecsedy, chief development officer of Ikena, said in a statement.
"By understanding the mechanism in which cancers resist therapies, we can create combination regimens that block key compensatory survival pathways," Ecsedy said. "The Hippo pathway is implicated in therapeutic resistance to multiple therapies, including osimertinib. Working with AstraZeneca will allow us to investigate how IK-930 could benefit patients with EGFR mutated cancers who have had difficulty responding to current treatments alone and demonstrate how combination with IK-930 could potentially enable deeper and prolonged anti-tumor responses."
Under the clinical trial collaboration agreement, AstraZeneca will supply Tagrisso for the trial. The companies didn't disclose further financial details of the deal.
Other monotherapy cohorts in the Phase I trial include patients with NF2-deficient mesothelioma and solid tumors and epithelioid hemangioendothelioma and solid tumors harboring YAP1/TAZ gene fusions. In June, the US Food and Drug Administration granted fast track designation to IK-930 monotherapy for patients with unresectable NF2-deficient malignant pleural mesothelioma.