Immunocore Inks Clinical Trial Collaboration With Sanofi For Metastatic Skin Cancers

(RTTNews) - Biotechnology company Immunocore Holdings Plc (IMCR) announced it has entered into a clinical trial collaboration and supply agreement with French drug major Sanofi's (SNYNF, SNY) to evaluate Sanofi's product candidate SAR444245, non-alpha IL-2, in combination with KIMMTRAK, Immunocore's novel bispecific protein, in patients with advanced unresectable or metastatic skin cancers as part of Sanofi's ongoing Phase 1/2 study.

Under the terms of the agreement, Sanofi will be responsible for clinical development and will assume all costs associated with the study, other than expenses related to the manufacturing and supply of KIMMTRAK, for which Immunocore is responsible.

SAR444245, a precisely PEGYlated engineered version of IL-2 built on Sanofi's Synthorin technology platform, is engineered to selectively expand tumor-killing T effector cells and NK cells without alpha-mediated immunosuppressive effects of regulatory T cells.

In January 2022 and April 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Commission (EC), respectively, approved KIMMTRAK (tebentafusp) for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic uveal melanoma (mUM).

Immunocore is currently planning a randomized study of KIMMTRAK with or without anti-PD1 therapy in patients with metastatic melanoma and anticipates initiating the trial in the fourth quarter of 2022.