Benzinga | Jul 6, 2021 04:06PM EDT

NextCure Initiates Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial of NC762 for Solid Tumors

NextCure, Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTC), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing novel, first-in-class immunomedicines to treat cancer and other immune-related diseases, today announced the initiation of a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for NC762, a humanized B7-H4 monoclonal antibody.

"We are pleased to have initiated the clinical trial of our third product candidate," said Michael Richman, NextCure's president and chief executive officer. "This represents an important expansion of our pipeline of novel immunomedicines designed to treat patients who are not adequately addressed by currently available therapies. We look forward to reporting initial data from this trial in mid-2022."

"NC762 is an innovative immunomedicine that directly inhibits tumor growth by a unique, T cell independent mechanism," said Han Myint, M.D., NextCure's chief medical officer. "As B7-H4 is widely expressed on multiple tumor types, including non-small cell lung cancer, ovarian cancer and breast cancer, we believe NC762 has the potential to provide benefit in multiple cancer indications."

The Phase 1 dose-escalation portion of this open-label trial is designed to evaluate the safety and tolerability of NC762 in patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumors and to determine its pharmacologically active and/or maximum tolerated dose. After a recommended dose for the Phase 2 portion of the trial is determined, NC762 will be evaluated in select tumor types. A B7-H4 Immunohistochemistry (IHC) assay has been successfully developed and will be used for patient selection in Phase 2.