Teon Therapeutics announced that it has entered into the clinical trial collaboration agreement with Merck (known as MSD outside the United States and Canada). The agreement is for the combination arm of Teon's ongoing, two-armed, open-label, dose escalation and expansion clinical study and will evaluate Teon's oral, immune response modifier, TT-816, in combination with Merck's anti-PD-1 therapy, KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab), for patients with advanced solid tumors. The study will include patients with many difficult-to-treat cancers with high unmet medical need who have not responded to the standard-of-care and may have limited treatment options.

KEYTRUDA® is a registered trademark of Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. This clinical trial is an open-label, Phase 1/2, first-in-human (FIH), multiple ascending dose and dose-expansion study of TT-816 orally administered as monotherapy and in combination with KEYTRUDA, Merck's anti-PD-1 therapy. An estimated 200 patients will be enrolled.

Phase 1 will evaluate safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, preliminary clinical activity and establish a recommended dose of TT-816 to be used as a monotherapy and in a combination therapy for Phase 2. Phase 2 will continue to evaluate safety and define the preliminary efficacy of these regimens in the setting of advanced solid tumors with high unmet medical needs including Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), Ovarian Cancer and Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC).