BMS and PsiOxus Therapeutics announce immuno-oncology clinical collaboration

Companies will evaluate the combination of Opdivo and enadenotucirev to treat a range of tumour types in late-stage cancer patients.

Enadenotucirev is designed to have immune stimulating effects, whereas Opdivo is designed to alleviate immune suppression. The clinical collaboration will support Phase I studies to determine whether combining these two agents can significantly improve the proportion of patients achieving objective tumour responses, the extent of tumour shrinkage, and/or the durability of responses.

“This collaboration continues to expand our clinical development of Opdivo and explores how oncolytic viruses may provide a complementary mechanism to address tumours that are resistant to I-O therapy,” said Jean Viallet, Global Clinical Research Lead, Oncology, BMS. “We are excited to partner with PsiOxus to evaluate the combination of Opdivo and enadenotucirev to accelerate our understanding of its potential as a new therapeutic option for cancer patients.”

“We are delighted to collaborate with BMS and to investigate enadenotucirev with Opdivo in several tumour types,” stated John Beadle, CEO, PsiOxus. “They are our ideal partner since we share a common vision of exploring novel combinations such as enadenotucirev and Opdivo to expand the range of patients who potentially respond favorably to checkpoint inhibitor therapy.”

Under the terms of this agreement, BMS will make a one-time upfront payment of $10 million to PsiOxus, and the parties will share development costs. PsiOxus will be responsible for conducting the Phase I study with patient recruitment expected to start in the third quarter of 2016. In addition, the companies will work exclusively with each other on anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antagonist antibody and enadenotucirev combination regimens, and BMS will have a time-limited right of exclusive negotiation for commercial rights to enadenotucirev.