BMS, Transgene Collaborate on Lung Cancer Combination

Bristol-Myers Squibb and Transgene have entered into a clinical research collaboration to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of Transgene’s investigational therapeutic vaccine TG4010 in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo (nivolumab) plus standard chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients whose tumors have low or undetectable levels of PD-L1. The companies will conduct a Phase 2 clinical trial to determine whether an immune response is generated against MUC1 expressing tumors such as NSCLC.

Opdivo, which was approved in 2014, is a programmed death-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor that is designed to harness the body’s immune system to help restore anti-tumor immune response. TG4010 is an immunotherapy vaccine that has been designed to express the coding sequences of the MUC1 tumor-associated antigen and the cytokine, Interleukin-2 , according to the companies.