http://www.pharmatimes.com/Article/14-07-07/Japan_approves_world_s_first_PD-1_drug_nivolumab.aspx

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NIVOLUMAB

Anti-PD-1;BMS-936558; ONO-4538

PRONUNCIATION nye vol’ ue mab
THERAPEUTIC CLAIM Treatment of cancer
CHEMICAL DESCRIPTION
A fully human IgG4 antibody blocking the programmed cell death-1 receptor (Medarex/Ono Pharmaceuticals/Bristol-Myers Squibb)
MOLECULAR FORMULA C6362H9862N1712O1995S42
MOLECULAR WEIGHT 143.6 kDa

SPONSOR Bristol-Myers Squibb
CODE DESIGNATION MDX-1106, BMS-936558
CAS REGISTRY NUMBER 946414-94-4

Bristol-Myers Squibb announced promising results from an expanded phase 1 dose-ranging study of its lung cancer drug nivolumab

Nivolumab (nye vol’ ue mab) is a fully human IgG4 monoclonal antibody designed for the treatment of cancer. Nivolumab was developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and is also known as BMS-936558 and MDX1106.^[1] Nivolumab acts as an immunomodulator by blocking ligand activation of the Programmed cell death 1 receptor.

A Phase 1 clinical trial ^[2] tested nivolumab at doses ranging from 0.1 to 10.0 mg per kilogram of body weight, every 2 weeks. Response was assessed after each 8-week treatment cycle, and were evaluable for 236 of 296 patients. Study authors concluded that:”Anti-PD-1 antibody produced objective responses in approximately one in four to one in five patients with non–small-cell lung cancer, melanoma, or renal-cell cancer; the adverse-event profile does not appear to preclude its use.”^[3]

Phase III clinical trials of nivolumab are recruiting in the US and EU.^[4]

1.  Statement On A Nonproprietary Name Adopted By The USAN Council – Nivolumab, American Medical Association.
2.  A Phase 1b Study of MDX-1106 in Subjects With Advanced or Recurrent Malignancies (MDX1106-03), NIH.
3.  Topalian SL, et al. (June 2012). “Safety, Activity, and Immune Correlates of Anti–PD-1 Antibody in Cancer”. New England Journal of Medicine 366. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1200690. Lay summary – New York Times.
4.  Nivolumab at ClinicalTrials.gov, A service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The PD-1 blocking antibody nivolumab continues to demonstrate sustained clinical activity in previously treated patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to updated long-term survival data from a phase I trial.

Survival rates at one year with nivolumab were 42% and reached 24% at two years, according to the median 20.3-month follow up. Additionally, the objective response rate (ORR) with nivolumab, defined as complete or partial responses by standard RECIST criteria, was 17% for patients with NSCLC. Results from the updated analysis will be presented during the 2013 World Conference on Lung Cancer on October 29.

“Lung cancer is very difficult to treat and there continues to be a high unmet medical need for these patients, especially those who have received multiple treatments,” David R. Spigel, MD, the program director of Lung Cancer Research at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute and one of the authors of the updated analysis, said in a statement.

“With nivolumab, we are investigating an approach to treating lung cancer that is designed to work with the body’s own immune system, and these are encouraging phase I results that support further investigation in larger scale trials.”

In the phase I trial, 306 patients received intravenous nivolumab at 0.1–10 mg/kg every-other-week for ≤12 cycles (4 doses/8 week cycle). In all, the trial enrolled patients with NSCLC, melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer.

The long-term follow up focused specifically on the 129 patients with NSCLC. In this subgroup, patients treated with nivolumab showed encouraging clinical activity. The participants had a median age of 65 years and good performance status scores, and more than half had received three or more prior therapies. Across all doses of nivolumab, the median overall survival was 9.9 months, based on Kaplan-Meier estimates.

In a previous update of the full trial results presented at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting, drug-related adverse events of all grades occurred in 72% of patients and grade 3/4 events occurred in 15%. Grade 3/4 pneumonitis related to treatment with nivolumab emerged early in the trial, resulting in 3 deaths. As a result, a treatment algorithm for early detection and management was developed to prevent this serious side effect.

Nivolumab is a fully human monoclonal antibody that blocks the PD-1 receptor from binding to both of its known ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2. This mechanism, along with early data, suggested an associated between PD-L1 expression and response to treatment.

In separate analysis presented at the 2013 World Conference on Lung Cancer, the association of tumor PD-L1 expression and clinical activity in patients with NSCLC treated with nivolumab was further explored. Of the 129 patients with NSCLC treated with nivolumab in the phase I trial, 63 with NSCLC were tested for PD-L1 expression by immunohistochemistry (29 squamous; 34 non-squamous).