At last, Immutep has some Lag3 data to shout about

Frédéric Triebel, the 1990 discoverer of the Lag3 immune control mechanism, has long served as Immutep’s chief medical officer, and now the company has some Lag3 clinical data to boast about. This has come courtesy of the Tacti-002 study of eftilagimod alpha plus Keytruda, showing impressive overall survival in first-line NSCLC. Thanks to this Immutep might have an efficacious Lag3 project, after Bristol Myers Squibb’s relatlimab was approved for melanoma as part of an Opdivo combo. However, unlike relatlimab, efti is not an anti-Lag3 MAb but a soluble Lag3 protein designed to stimulate the immune system. The caveat is that Tacti-002 is uncontrolled, and its 25 months’ median OS in PD-L1 ≥1% expressers compares favourably only across trials in similar populations, like Cityscape (14.5 months for Tecentriq), Keytruda’s Keynote-042 (16.7 months) and Opdivo plus Yervoy’s Checkmate-227 part 1a (17.1 months). On the plus side, the Tacti-002 population seems broadly similar to Keynote-042’s, though in Cityscape Roche learned the hard way that phase 2 promise does not necessarily translate into a phase 3 win. All eyes are now on presentation of full Tacti-002 data, and on relatlimab’s own first-line NSCLC trial, which should read out in 2024.

A cross-trial comparison in 1st-line PD-L1 ≥1% NSCLC

Source: ASCO 2018, SITC 2022 & Immutep.