Apollomics Inc. announced that two abstracts detailing vebreltinib data were made available as part of the European Society of Medical Oncology Congress (ESMO) 2023 being held in Madrid, Spain from October 20-24, 2023. The preliminary safety and efficacy data from the Phase 2 KUNPENG clinical trial, evaluating vebreltinib in patients in China with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring c-MET alterations will be presented by Beijing Pearl, Apollomics? partner in China in a poster presentation session.

The poster will include data from patients with METex14 mutation (Cohort 1) from the Phase 2, open-label, multicenter and multi-cohort study. In addition, as part of a real-life cohort analysis of targeted therapy for subjects with recurrent glioblastoma (GBM), preliminary data on vebreltinib from the APL-101-01 SPARTA study will be part of a mini-oral presentation. Vebreltinib is a potent, small molecule, orally bioavailable and highly selective c-MET inhibitor.

It works by inhibiting the aberrant activation of the HGF/c-MET axis, a key pathway involved in tumor growth, proliferation, and the development of resistance to certain targeted therapies such as osimertinib. By targeting c-MET dysregulation, vebreltinib offers a potential breakthrough for patients with MET exon 14 skipping NSCLC and other cancers driven by c-MET alterations. Vebreltinib has demonstrated strong tumor inhibitory effect in a variety of preclinical c-MET dysregulated human gastric, hepatic, pancreatic and lung cancer xenograft animal models and patient-derived xenograft models (PDX).

In Phase 1 clinical trials, vebreltinib (PLB1001) demonstrated a generally well-tolerated safety profile with preliminary evidence of clinical activity in NSCLC subjects harboring a mutation that leads to MET exon 14 skipping and in secondary glioblastoma multiforme (sGBM) patients harboring MET fusion and/or exon 14 skipping with evidence of brain penetration. In China, vebreltinib is referred to as PLB1001 where it is being developed by Apollomics' partner Beijing Pearl Biotechnology Co. Ltd. Apollomics is actively assessing the potential of investigating vebreltinib in combination with novel therapies and in a variety of tumor types in addition to developing vebreltinib as single-agent cancer therapy.

Vebreltinib is currently under clinical investigation and not approved for any use anywhere in the world.