Few pancreatic Gleams of hope for Vyloy

Astellas’s Claudin18.2-targeting MAb Vyloy has flunked the mid-stage Gleam trial in first-line pancreatic cancer, but the company has already moved on to other modalities. Vyloy is FDA approved as part of a chemo combo for first-line gastric cancer, but only in patients with 75% or higher Claudin18.2 expression. Gleam, which compared Vyloy plus Abraxane and gemcitabine against Abraxane/gemcitabine alone, was Astellas’s sole phase 2 foray outside gastric cancer, according to OncologyPipeline, and failed to meet its primary endpoint of overall survival, Astellas said on Tuesday. The company has a phase 1 first-line pancreatic cancer trial ongoing, testing Vyloy plus another chemo regimen, mFolfirinox, but in an interview with ApexOnco the group’s head of oncology development, Moitreyee Chatterjee-Kishore, highlighted a different agent, the T-cell engager ASP2138. That project is in a phase 1 trial in gastric and pancreatic cancers; in the latter, monotherapy is being tested in relapsed disease, and an mFolfirinox combo in the front line. A phase 1 study of ASP2138 in neoadjuvant pancreatic cancer, followed by adjuvant chemo, is also under way. In addition, Astellas has a Claudin18.2-directed ADC, the Evopoint-originated ASP546C, whose phase 1/2 solid tumour trial includes pancreatic patients.

Astellas’s Claudin18.2-targeting assets in pancreatic cancer

Source: OncologyPipeline.