“These new data are really promising and strengthen our confidence of nadunolimab as future therapy for pancreatic cancer” said Göran Forsberg, CEO of
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a lethal disease with poor survival prognosis. Nadunolimab is currently in phase II clinical development in first line PDAC and has shown pronounced effects including a much longer survival than expected from historical controls. One factor that significantly contributes to the poor treatment response in PDAC is the high abundance of tumor-supporting stroma, driven by the excessive activity of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). The new data now show that in pancreatic cancer-associated fibroblasts, interleukin-1alpha (IL-1alpha) and IL-1beta both induce formation of type III collagen (as measured by PRO-C3), a biomarker which has been found to correlate with poor survival in PDAC. Similarly, formation of type III collagen could also be induced by pancreatic cancer cells when co-cultured with pancreatic CAFs. Notably, addition of nadunolimab to the in vitro co-cultures potently blocked the induction of type III collagen formation. Thus, the new data strengthen the role of IL-1alpha and IL-1beta in pancreatic tumor fibrosis and highlight the potential for nadunolimab to counter the detrimental, fibrotic microenvironment in PDAC tumors.
“One of the clinical challenges in treating pancreatic cancer relates to the tumor promoting fibrosis, a hallmark of this disease. Nadunolimab’s ability to block this fibrosis is very promising and gives a strong support to the clinical and translational results we have to date” said
The data was generated in collaboration with
Title: ILRAP blockade mediates anti-fibrotic effects in pancreatic cancer-associated fibroblasts
Session Title: The Tumor Microenvironment as a Drug Target
Session Date and Time: Monday Apr 8, 2024
Published Abstract Number: 2895
After the conference, the poster will be available at Cantargia’s web page (link).
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