SAN FRANCISCO & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) and Nektar Therapeutics (Nasdaq:NKTR) today announced a new clinical collaboration to evaluate Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo (nivolumab) with Nektar’s investigational medicine, NKTR-214, as a potential combination treatment regimen in five tumor types and seven potential indications. Opdivo is a PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor designed to overcome immune suppression. NKTR-214 is an investigational immuno-stimulatory therapy designed to expand specific cancer-fighting T cells and natural killer (NK) cells directly in the tumor micro-environment and increase expression of PD-1 on these immune cells.
“We are excited to explore the potential benefits in multiple types of cancer of the combination of Opdivo with Nektar’s innovative cancer immunotherapy,” said Fouad Namouni, M.D., Head of Oncology, Bristol-Myers Squibb. “We believe that a combination regimen which utilizes two different and complementary mechanisms designed to harness the body’s own immune system to fight cancer has the potential to provide new treatment options for patients.”
