AstraZeneca (LON: AZN), the drugmaker, and Daiichi Sankyo have agreed a clinical collaboration with Summit Therapeutics to test Datroway with Summit’s ivonescimab. The work will cover several tumour types, including lung and breast cancers, and begins with a Phase III trial in first-line triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).
Each company supplies its own medicine, and AstraZeneca or Daiichi Sankyo will sponsor the trials. All three share the trial costs, and each keeps the development and commercial rights to its own drug. No financial terms for the collaboration are disclosed.
AstraZeneca said a recently announced equity investment in Summit will help support ivonescimab collaborations, including this one. It also covers a separate agreement for Summit’s sonesitatug vedotin (Sone-Ve) and planned work pairing ivonescimab with other AstraZeneca cancer medicines, including more antibody drug conjugates (ADCs).
Ivonescimab is a potential first-in-class bispecific antibody blocking both PD-1 and VEGF. It is approved for certain lung cancer patients in China, and a US marketing application (a BLA) in EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer is under FDA review. Phase III trials run in eight cancer types, including TNBC.
Datroway, discovered by Daiichi Sankyo and jointly developed with AstraZeneca, targets the TROP2 protein. It is approved in more than 30 countries for certain TNBC patients and in more than 45 for HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, with over 20 trials under way.
Susan Galbraith, AstraZeneca’s EVP Oncology Haematology R&D, said:
We believe the combination of Datroway and ivonescimab has the potential to make a meaningful difference in multiple tumour types including lung and breast cancers.
Susan Galbraith, AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca shares stood at 11,972p as of 08:17 UK time today, down 0.50% from yesterday’s close of 12,032p, within a range of 11,790p to 11,976p. Nothing in the announcement ties that move to the news.
The shares sit about 23% below their closing 52-week high of 15,542p and 4.5% above the closing low of 11,460p on the 14th of August. They are down 13.2% this year, with closes falling from 14,538p on the 2nd of July to 11,500p on the 3rd of August.
For shareholders this is a pipeline option rather than a financial event, with no financial terms disclosed. The start of the Phase III trial and the FDA review of ivonescimab are the developments to follow.