Benzinga | Aug 3, 2021 08:06AM EDT

Ambrx Announces First Patient Dosed In A Phase 1 Trial For ARX517, An ADC In Development To Treat PSMA Expressing Tumors

Ambrx (NYSE:AMAM), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company using an expanded genetic code technology platform to create Engineered Precision Biologics, today announced the first patient has been dosed in a Phase 1, multicenter, open-label, dose-escalation, and dose expansion study to evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics (PK), and anti-tumor activity of ARX517 in subjects with prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) expressing tumors found in prostate, pancreatic, lung and ovarian cancers.

ARX517 is an anti-PSMA antibody drug conjugate (ADC) that demonstrated activity in both enzalutamide sensitive and resistant preclinical models for prostate cancer while demonstrating favorable PK and toxicity profiles in IND-enabling GLP toxicity studies.

"I am excited to announce that we dosed our first patient in our Phase 1 trial, and thus have taken the first steps in evaluating the potential clinical benefit of ARX517 in cancer patients with tumors overexpressing PSMA," said Feng Tian, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of Ambrx. "ARX517 is the second ADC in our internal pipeline to enter the clinic, which I believe speaks to the broad applicability and productivity of our technology platform. I look forward to updating you on the progression of this trial."

The Phase 1 trial will be a multi-center, open-label, dose escalation and dose expansion study. This trial, referred to as APEX-01, is designed to assess the safety, tolerability and PK profile, as well as the anti-tumor activity, of ARX517 as a monotherapy. The trial will enroll up to 76 patients with advanced solid tumors whose diseases have failed prior standard therapies.