Astra throws doubt on one oncology combo approach

This morning’s discontinuation of Astrazeneca’s lung cancer study combining oleclumab with AZD4635 should be of interest to Corvus and Novartis. The latter two companies are also pursuing combinations of in-house projects that have the same mechanisms of action: co-blocking CD73 and the A2A receptor. The two pathways are thought to be related, and there is some preclinical rationale behind blocking them both. Astra today stressed that it was continuing to work on combinations, and indeed a separate oleclumab/AZD4635 trial in prostate cancer is continuing. The group has also recently begun new studies combining oleclumab with Imfinzi, as well as with Innate Pharma’s anti-CD39 MAb IPH5201. Corvus’s A2A approach, once implied only in Parkinson’s disease, had earlier disappointed in combination with Tecentriq (AACR – Parkinson’s approach to cancer needs more work, Aptil 5, 2017). And yesterday the company disappointed further, falling 5% after the same combo posted just one partial remission among 35 subjects with very late-line prostate cancer, according to an abstract at Asco’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.