Medivir AB announced that a poster entitled A triple combination of fostrox (MIV-818) with immune checkpoint and kinase inhibition shows increased anti-tumor efficacy in vivo, will be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting by Fredrik Öberg, CSO at Medivir. Fostroxacitabine bralpamide (fostrox) is an orally administered liver targeted prodrug currently undergoing a phase 1/2a clinical study in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), in combination with Keytruda® (anti-PD1) or Lenvima® (kinase inhibitor) (NCT0341818). In previous studies, Fostrox has shown significantly increased anti-tumor effect in combination with both anti-PD1 and kinase inhibitors in non-clinical tumor models, which opens the door for a potentially further enhanced tumor effect with a triple combination.

The poster supports this potential as it exhibits that fostrox combined with both anti-PD1 and Lenvima® shows a synergistic anti-tumor effect in a non-clinical tumor model characterized by the same low, underlying DNA damage seen in patients with HCC. The poster also shows that fostrox induces increased tumor infiltration of CD8+ T cells as well as increased expression of PD-L1 and LAG-3, indicating increased immune-mediated antitumor activity. The results indicate a potential for triple combination of anti-PD1 and Lenvima® with fostrox in the treatment of HCC.