Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (“Teva”) and Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co. (“Fosun Pharma”) recently announced a partnership to accelerate the development of Teva’s TEV-56278, a novel fusion protein that uses Teva’s ATTENUKINE™ technology to target cytokine activity to tumor cells while reducing toxic side effects. The new drug is intended to treat melanoma and other cancers and will be evaluated alone and in combination with pembrolizumab.
TEV-56278 is a fusion of the cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) and an antibody to programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1). IL-2 is known to stimulate anti-tumor T cell activity but has significant side effects, particularly affecting the vascular system. PD-1 is frequently expressed by tumor-specific T cells. The fusion protein is designed to target IL-2 activity to PD-1+ T cells within a tumor, promoting its anti-tumor effects and reducing toxicity to other systems. Teva’s ATTENUKINE™ technology has previously been investigated in an anti-CD38-IFNα fusion protein, where a single attenuating point mutation was introduced into the cytokine IFNα (interferon alpha) to reduce binding affinity for the INFα receptor.
According to Teva and Fosun Pharma, the partnership will leverage Fosun Pharma’s oncology development expertise, which will speed up the generation of clinical data for both companies. In return, Fosun Pharma will have an exclusive license to develop, manufacture, and commercialize TEV-56278 in China and certain other countries in Southeast Asia. Teva will retain these rights in all other markets.