Novartis won’t can canakinumab

Novartis is keeping the faith in canakinumab in oncology, despite the project’s latest failure, this time in first-line non-small cell lung cancer. The phase 3 Canopy-1 trial, which combined cana with Keytruda and chemo, did not show a benefit on its co-primary endpoints of PFS and OS, but Novartis said it saw promising signs in patients with baseline inflammatory biomarkers including high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. Any remaining hopes for the anti-IL-1 beta antibody now rest in adjuvant and neoadjuvant settings. Novartis is clinging to the fact that patients in the adjuvant Canopy-A study are apparently similar to those in Cantos, the cardiovascular study that kicked off the group’s efforts in cancer. But cana’s chances in cancer now look even slimmer than in March, when the second-line Canopy-2 trial failed. The news could also be bad for Cantargia, which is testing its rival IL-1 blocker nidanilimab in various cancers. Interim NSCLC data presented at Esmo, from the Canfour trial, were hard to interpret, concerning just 27 patients with both first and second-line disease, and including those who had received Keytruda first line – a particularly hard setting to judge given the lack of data in post-PD(L)1 patients.