Arcus Biosciences and Infinity Pharmaceuticals Announce Clinical Collaboration to Evaluate Lead Programs in Triple-Combination Studies

Arcus Biosciences (NYSE:RCUS), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on creating innovative cancer immunotherapies, and Infinity Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INFI), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing IPI-549, a first-in-class immuno-oncology product candidate that selectively inhibits phosphoinositide-3-kinase gamma (PI3K-gamma), today announced that they have entered into a clinical collaboration to evaluate two triple combination therapies in selected tumor types which typically show minimal response to checkpoint inhibition monotherapy.

As quoted in the press release:

The collaboration will evaluate IPI-549 in combination with AB928, Arcus’s dual adenosine receptor antagonist, and AB122, Arcus’s anti-PD-1 antibody, as well as IPI-549 in combination with AB928 and chemotherapy in patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) or ovarian cancer in four separate cohorts. These four cohorts will be incorporated into Arcus’s recently initiated Phase 1/1b trial to evaluate AB928 combinations in TNBC and ovarian cancer. As both macrophages and high adenosine levels are believed to play critical roles in creating a highly immune-suppressive tumor microenvironment in TNBC and ovarian cancer, the triple combinations being evaluated could represent a promising approach to treating these tumor types. By intervening in multiple mechanisms that mediate immuno-suppression, the companies hope to address two tumor types that lack effective therapies, particularly in later lines of treatment.

“This partnership with Infinity is important as, for the first time, we will be investigating the potential for the triple combination of a selective PI3K-gamma inhibitor, a dual adenosine receptor antagonist, and either a PD-1 inhibitor or chemotherapy to effectively treat patients with triple negative breast cancer or ovarian cancer,” said Terry Rosen, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Arcus Biosciences. “This collaboration also allows us to expand the number of promising combinations with strong biological rationale that we plan to evaluate in our recently initiated Phase 1/1b trial for AB928. Arcus has carefully considered which immuno-oncology therapies can best target immune suppressive macrophages and has concluded that selective inhibition of PI3K-gamma is a fundamental mechanism for reprogramming macrophages from a pro-tumor to an anti-tumor function.”

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