This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Halozyme Therapeutics, Genentech collaborate on pancreatic cancer trial
Halozyme Therapeutics and Genentech initiated a multiarm clinical trial that will evaluate PEGPH20 in combination with atezolizumab for previously treated patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
PEGPH20 (Halozyme Therapeutics) is an enzyme that temporarily degrades hyaluronan (HA), a glycosaminoglycan. The enzyme reduces tumor pressure and potentially increases blood flow, which allows greater access for chemotherapies and immunotherapies to treat the tumor.
The open-label, randomized phase 1/phase 2b trial will evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and preliminary antitumor activity of PEGPH20 plus atezolizumab (Tecentriq, Genentech) — an anti-PD-L1 immunotherapy — compared with standard chemotherapy regimens. Patients will be enrolled regardless of HA level, and retrospective analyses will be performed on a subset of HA-high patients who will be identified using a companion diagnostic assay.
“This clinical trial expands the study of PEGPH20 in pancreatic cancer, evaluating previously treated pancreas cancer patients and combining PEGPH20 with an anti-PDL1 monoclonal antibody for the first time,” Helen Torley, MB Ch B, MRCP, president and CEO of Halozyme Therapeutics, said in a company-issued press release. “We are pleased to provide PEGPH20 in this collaboration study to evaluate and potentially advance new treatment options for patients with pancreatic cancer, one of the hardest to treat cancers.”
The study, sponsored and funded by Genentech, is part of a clinical collaboration agreement announced last year to evaluate PEGPH20 and atezolizumab in up to eight tumor types, including pancreatic and gastric cancers.