Vaximm AG, a Swiss/German biotech company focused on developing oral T-cell immunotherapies, has entered into a collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company which in the US and Canada operates as EMD Serono, and Pfizer Inc. to evaluate avelumab, a human anti-PD-L1 antibody, in combination with Vaximm's VXM01.
VXM01 is an investigational oral T-cell immunotherapy designed to activate T-cells to attack the tumor vasculature, and, in several tumor types, attack cancer cells directly. Under the terms of the agreement, Vaximm will be responsible for conducting two open-label phase I/II trials - one in glioblastoma and one in metastatic colorectal cancer.
"There is a strong scientific rationale for combining VXM01 oral T-cell immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors, as they have complementary modes of action," said Matthias Schroff, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Vaximm. "We are excited to have the opportunity to work with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and Pfizer to explore the combination of VXM01 with avelumab in cancers for which there is an urgent need for more effective therapies."
"We continue to explore the role of avelumab in a variety of challenging cancers across our extensive clinical development program," said Alise Reicin, M.D., head of global clinical development at the biopharma business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. "We hope that this clinical investigation of avelumab as a combination therapy with Vaximm's VXM01 will provide further insights into new ways of addressing these hard-to-treat cancers."
"A key facet of our clinical development program for avelumab includes evaluating the role of combination approaches in immuno-oncology," said Chris Boshoff, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president and head of Immuno-oncology, Early Development and Translational Oncology, Pfizer Global Product Development. "Our collaboration with Vaximm will help advance our understanding of how the combined approach of an oral T-cell immunotherapy combined with avelumab could potentially help patients with glioblastoma and metastatic colorectal cancer."