The cohort included 25 patients with metastatic melanoma whose disease no longer responded to checkpoint inhibitors. All had failed anti-PD-1 therapy, and 48% had also failed anti-CTLA-4 therapy. The disease control rate was 20%, and median overall survival was 7.6 months. Patients with disease control had a median overall survival of 15.2 months, compared with 6.2 months for those without.

Exploratory biomarker data showed that patients who achieved disease control started with lower levels of interferon gamma in the blood, which then rose during treatment. Faron is now testing bexmarilimab together with the checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab in the BLAZE trial, led by The Institute of Cancer Research, London, where the first patient was dosed on October 1.

“One in five achieved disease control on a single agent, and those patients lived longer, although in 25 patients we cannot call that difference statistically significant,” says Petri Bono, Chief Medical Officer of Faron.