Seattle Genetics Inks Clinical Collaborations For Cancer Drug

Seattle Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGEN) announced two clinical collaborations to evaluate SGN-LIV1A in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).

SGN-LIV1A is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that being developed for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer in patients whose tumors express the LIV-1 protein.

Seattle Genetics’ shares have outperformed the industry year to date. While the stock has been up 16.5%, the industry gained 13.7%.

The company will test SGN-LIV1A in combination with Merck and Co.’s (NYSE:MRK) Keytruda in a phase Ib/II study as first line treatment for locally advanced and metastatic TNBC. The study is expected to enroll up to 72 patients. Per the agreement, Seattle Genetics will retain global development and commercialization rights to SGN-LIV1A and will hold the investigational new drug (IND) for the study.

Additionally, SGN-LIV1A will be evaluated in combination with standard chemotherapy as neoadjuvant treatment in the phase II, I-SPY 2 study for newly diagnosed Stage 2 or 3 human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) negative breast cancer. The study is sponsored by Quantum Leap Health Care Collaborative (Quantum Leap) and is expected to enroll up to 75 patients in the SGN-LIV1A treatment arm. In fact, the study is designed in a way so that it can screen the potential treatments for the specific patient subgroups based on molecular characteristics.

Furthermore, four clinical studies are planned for SGN-LIV1A in breast cancer with a focus on TNBC. Apart from this, SGN-LIV1A monotherapy is being evaluated in an ongoing phase 1 trial for patients with metastatic breast cancer including patients heavily pre-treated for TNBC.

In fact, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women and TNBC. Also, it is very aggressive form and associated with poor patient outcomes. Therefore, a lot of companies are developing products in this space.

Last month, Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INFI) expanded its existing clinical collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) for evaluating IPI-549 in combination with latter’s checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo. The collaboration will include patients with TNBC, who have not been previously exposed to anti-PD-1 or anti-PD-L1 therapy.

Notably, very few patients with triple negative breast cancer respond to checkpoint inhibitors alone and so they are left with very limited therapeutic options. This, in turn, expands the collaboration to include patients with TNBC, who have not been previously exposed to anti-PD-1 or anti-PD-L1 therapy. This in turn will enable Infinity to test whether IPI-549 in combination with Opdivo can increase the number of patients who respond to checkpoint inhibition.

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Seattle Genetics carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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