Amplia Therapeutics Limited announced that the US FDA have cleared Amplia's IND application for a trial of Amplia's best-in-class focal adhesion kinase (FAK) inhibitor narmafotinib in pancreatic cancer. The proposed trial will explore the safety, tolerability and efficacy of a combination of narmafotinib with the chemotherapy regime FOLFIRINOX. The company is currently undertaking a Phase 2a clinical trial of narmafotinib, in combination with two chemotherapy drugs, gemcitabine and Abraxane®, in advanced pancreatic patients in Australia and South Korea.

In contrast, the IND application reviewed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) supports the use of narmafotinib in combination with a different chemotherapy called FOLFIRINOX (a four drug regimen), which is widely employed in the US for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. The IND document is an extensive dossier that details all preclinical and clinical data amassed to date for narmafotinib, along with complete CMC (chemistry, manufacturing and controls) information. The final document comprised more than 10,000 pages and represented a major undertaking by the company over the previous months.