First patients dosed with Anaveon's lead program

While recombinant IL-2 has shown efficacy in the treatment of metastatic melanoma and renal cell carcinoma, it has major drawbacks, which result in a limited therapeutic window. ANV419 is expected to overcome these limitations and to have better efficacy, to require less frequent dosing as it is stable for longer in the body and to have better safety – no severe toxic events were observed in preclinical trials. The first patient has now been dosed in a Phase I/II open-label trial to evaluate the safety, tolerability, dose-finding and clinical efficacy of ANV419 in patients with advanced solid tumours. Recruitment is ongoing in Spain. 
Anaveon expects to report initial clinical safety and pharmacokinetic (PK)/ pharmacodynamic (PD) data by the end of 2021.

“Dosing our first patient represents an important validation of our approach and is a significant milestone for Anaveon,” said Christoph Bucher, Chief Medical Officer of Anaveon. “We have initiated a multi-part, first-in-human dose-finding study of ANV419 as a monotherapy in patients with solid tumours. Our compound has excellent tolerability in non-human primates and marked efficacy in a variety of tumour models and elicits strong and selective proliferation of effector cells in multiple settings.”

Martin Murphy, Chief Executive of Syncona Investment Management Limited - the lead investor of Anavaeon's Series A financing round -, added: “We are encouraged by Anaveon’s strong progress since our first investment in the company in 2019. The first patient dosing comes off the back of pre-clinical data which has shown that ANV419 has the potential to be a best-in-class asset. Whilst not without risk, the clinical data generated by the company will be a critical driver of value and there is a fast timeline for the company to show differentiation against competing products. We are excited about its potential.”

(Press release / SK)