NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - April 14, 2016) - Kadmon Corporation, LLC today announced the presentation of new preclinical data demonstrating that its novel anti-PD-L1/IL-15 bi-functional fusion protein, KD033, stimulated long-lasting and persistent antitumor immunity, one of the most important immune responses to control tumor growth and metastasis. The data will be summarized in a poster presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2016, taking place April 16 - 20 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Cancer cells exploit the immune system's checkpoints, blocking its ability to recognize and destroy tumors. Anti-PD-L1 antibodies, which unblock these checkpoints to restore the immune system's ability to attack tumor cells, have shown remarkable efficacy against many cancer types, but have limited clinical outcomes due to impaired overall antitumor immunity. To this end, Kadmon has developed KD033, an anti-PD-L1/IL-15 fusion protein, which inhibits the PD-L1 pathway to reduce immune checkpoint blockade and simultaneously stimulates immune effector cells to direct an IL-15 cytokine-driven, specific immune response to the tumor microenvironment.
New data demonstrated that KD033 significantly suppressed tumor growth in various in vivo models. KD033 effectively blocked the PD-L1 pathway to restore innate and adaptive immunity. At the same time, via targeted IL-15 cytokine activity, KD033 activated natural killer (NK) and CD8+ T cells and recruited these effector cells to the tumor site, achieving antitumor activity with significantly less toxicity compared to non-targeted IL-15 cytokine therapy. Importantly, in a mouse model, KD033 achieved long-lasting antitumor efficacy following the completion of initial treatment by stimulating memory CD8+ T cells, which effectively mediated persistent antitumor immunity without additional treatment.
"KD033 delivers a three-pronged attack against tumor cells: in addition to restoring and enhancing the immune system's ability to recognize and kill cancer cells while simultaneously recruiting antitumor activity to the tumor microenvironment, it also stimulated long-lasting memory CD8+ T cells to achieve persistent antitumor efficacy," said Yan Wu, Vice President, Antibody Research at Kadmon and Project Leader of the study. "With these unique immunological activities, KD033 potentially represents a more effective approach to cancer immunotherapy than currently available therapies for long-lasting control of cancer and metastasis."
About Kadmon Corporation
Kadmon Corporation, LLC is a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative products for significant unmet medical needs. We have a diversified product pipeline in autoimmune and fibrotic diseases, oncology and genetic diseases.
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on management's expectations and are subject to certain factors, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, outcome of events, timing and performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. The information contained in this press release is believed to be current as of the date of original issue. Kadmon expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in our expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statements are based.
