Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: INFI) shares made a healthy gain early on Tuesday after the firm announced a collaboration with Arcus Biosciences Inc. (NYSE: RCUS). These two companies have entered into a clinical collaboration to evaluate two triple combination therapies in selected tumor types that typically show minimal response to checkpoint inhibition monotherapy.
Under the terms of the agreement, Infinity and Arcus will share equally expenses related to the four triple-combination cohorts to evaluate safety and activity. Each of the four triple-combination cohorts will enroll roughly 15 patients.
Topline data from these studies are expected in 2019.
As for the specifics, the collaboration will evaluate Infinity’s IPI-549 in combination with Arcus’s AB928 and AB122, 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.
Terry Rosen, Ph.D., CEO of Arcus, commented:
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.
Shares of Infinity Pharma traded up more than 5% to $2.13, with a consensus analyst price target of $4.50 and a 52-week range of $0.93 to $3.75.
Shares of Arcus Bio traded at $14.69, with a consensus analyst price target of $23.00 and a 52-week range of $13.26 to $22.10.
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