Abivax SA announced the detailed results of the dose escalation phase of its clinical phase 1/2 study conducted with ABX196 for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), to be presented at the ASCO GI Cancers Symposium on January 20-22, 2022. In this study, heavily pre-treated hepatocellular cancer (HCC) patients were administered ABX196 in combination with checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab, including patients who were previously exposed to checkpoint inhibitor treatments. These results support the further clinical development of ABX196 in the HCC setting.

The ASCO GI Cancers Symposium is one of the most important international conferences to present and discuss the latest, most innovative and promising research advances in the field of gastrointestinal cancer. It is organized every year by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the organization in cancer research. The phase 1/2 clinical trial in hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common form of liver cancer, is conducted at two renowned cancer centers of excellence in the US, the Scripps MD Anderson Cancer Center in San Diego, CA, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX.

In this trial, ABX196, an invariant Natural Killer T cell (iNKT) agonist, is administered together with the checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo(R), Bristol Myers Squibb) to evaluate safety and the potential beneficial effects of this combination therapy. Patients who were previously failing on first line therapy, including checkpoint inhibitors, were enrolled into the study that consists of two phases: a dose escalation phase and a subsequent expansion phase.