AbbVie Partners with BMS for Combined Lung-Cancer Therapy

On Sep. 22, 2017, AbbVie announced a clinical trial collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) to evaluate the combination of the company’s investigational antibody drug conjugate (ADC), ABBV-399 (telisotuzumab vedotin), and BMS' Opdivo (nivolumab), a programmed death-1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitor, in treating c-Met overexpressing non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A Phase Ib clinical study is currently underway.

Opdivo is a blockbuster drug for BMS with 2016 sales of $3.77 billion. AbbVie is sponsoring and conducting the clinical trial. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

ABBV-399 is an anti-c-Met ADC that targets tumors either amplified by the MET gene or overexpressing the c-Met protein. It is currently being investigated to treat advanced solid tumors. c-Met expression is significantly higher in many solid tumors compared to normal tissue and is a marker of poor prognosis, according to AbbVie.

Opdivo is currently approved in more than 60 countries, including the United States, the European Union, and Japan, and is approved in more than 50 countries in combination with Yervoy (ipilimumab). Opdivo’s indications include melanoma, NSCLC, renal cell carcinoma, classical Hodgkin lymphoma, squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, urothelial carcinoma, and colorectal cancer.

Source: AbbVie