Benzinga | Oct 7, 2021 09:05AM EDT

Clovis Oncology Says Pan-Cancer Analysis Suggests Fibroblast Activation Protein (FAP) Is Attractive Target For Peptide-Targeted Radionuclide Therapy With FAP-2286

Clovis Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLVS) announced that nonclinical data describing the expression of fibroblast activating protein (FAP) in a variety of solid tumor types will be presented during the AACR-NCI-EORTC Virtual International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, taking place October 7-10, 2021. The analysis, conducted with its partner 3B Pharmaceuticals GmbH, measured FAP expression in multiple tumor types using immunohistochemistry (IHC) as well as the correlation between FAP expression by IHC and in vitro binding of FAP-2286, Clovis' peptide-targeted radionuclide therapy (PTRT) clinical development candidate that targets FAP.

"We believe these findings across multiple solid tumor types demonstrate the importance of FAP as a cancer target and underscore the potential for 177Lu-FAP-2286 to treat patients with FAP-expressing tumors," said Dr. Thomas Harding, Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Clovis Oncology. "These provide additional validation for our ongoing Phase 1/2 LuMIERE clinical trial of FAP-2286, the first peptide-targeted radionuclide therapeutic in clinical development targeting FAP, and support investigation of FAP-2286 in a broad number of cancer indications. This is representative ofour commitment to emerge as a leader in targeted radionuclide therapy by developing innovative radiotherapies such as FAP-2286 for patients with hard-to-treat cancers."

To determine FAP protein expression in different tumor types, a pan-tumor IHC screen was performed that included 360 samples representing 16 different tumor types. For this analysis, high FAP expression was defined as an overall H-score ?30 in more than 30% of the samples analyzed in a given tumor type. The IHC screen showed high FAP expression in nine of the 16 solid tumor types evaluated, including pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, cancer of unknown primary, salivary gland, mesothelioma, colon, bladder, sarcoma, squamous non--small cell lung, and squamous head and neck cancers. High FAP expression was detected in both primary and metastatic tumor samples and was independent of tumor stage or grade.

The analysis also demonstrated that in most tumor types, FAP expression was predominantly localized to the stroma surrounding the tumor cells within the tumor microenvironment. FAP expression in tumor cells was also observed: in cancers of mesenchymal origin, such as sarcoma and mesothelioma, tumor-cell expression was common, consistent, and strong; in cancers of epithelial origin, tumor-cell FAP expression was rare and, when present, appeared weaker than in the adjacent stroma.

A significant correlation was seen between FAP expression observed by IHC and in vitro FAP-2286 binding as determined by autoradiography, suggesting that FAP is an attractive target for PTRT in a wide array of tumor types.

Following are details of the Clovis-sponsored presentation:

Poster Number: LBA032 - Pan-Cancer Analysis of Fibroblast Activation Protein Alpha (FAP) Expression to Guide Tumor Selection for the Peptide-Targeted Radionuclide Therapy FAP-2286

Lead author: Tanya T. Kwan, PhD

Category: Radiotherapeutics

Date/Time: Thursday, October 7 at 9:00 am ET

The presentation and accompanying poster can also be viewed at: https://clovisoncology.com/pipeline/scientific-presentations/

For more information about FAP-2286, Targeted Radionuclide Therapy (TRT), or Clovis' TRT development program CLICK HERE.