Benzinga | Jan 6, 2022 04:14PM EST

Immuneering Reports Preclinical Data On IMM-1-104 In NRAS Mutant Melanoma Model; Says 'Preclinical Data Suggest IMM-1-104 May Offer Unique Therapeutic Advantage Compared with Binimetinib in NRAS Mutant Tumors'

Preclinical Data Suggest IMM-1-104 May Offer Unique Therapeutic Advantage Compared with Binimetinib in NRAS Mutant Tumors

Data to be discussed in Key External Expert event on January 6 2022, 5PM Eastern Time

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Immuneering Corporation (NASDAQ:IMRX), a biopharmaceutical company advancing a robust pipeline of oncology and neuroscience product candidates that are designed to uniquely disrupt cellular signaling dynamics, today announced preclinical data highlighting the potential of its lead product candidate, IMM-1-104, to inhibit tumor growth in NRAS mutant melanoma models. The data were submitted as a poster presentation at the recently postponed American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Special Conference: Targeting RAS (originally scheduled for January 7-10, 2022). Given that abstracts are not being published at this time due to postponement of the event, Immuneering is making available the data in a presentation titled "Head-to-Head Comparison of the Dual-MEK Inhibitor IMM-1-104 Versus Binimetinib in NRAS Mutant Melanoma Models," by Peter King, PhD, Vice President and Head of Discovery at Immuneering on its website (www.immuneering.com/publications/).

IMM-1-104 is a novel, allosteric dual-MEK inhibitor that is designed to disrupt phosphorylation of both MEK and its downstream target ERK and has a short plasma drug half-life, with the aim of enabling deep cyclic inhibition with a near-zero drug trough. The Company anticipates submission of an Investigational New Drug application (IND) for IMM-1-104 to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the third quarter of this year.

"These compelling data add to the growing body of preclinical evidence in support of IMM-1-104's potential to inhibit tumors driven by the MAPK pathway including KRAS and NRAS mutant tumors. This is especially important because existing drugs targeting this pathway often are limited by toxicity or are narrowly focused on subpopulations with specific mutations," said Ben Zeskind, Ph.D., Co-Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Immuneering. "We look forward to evaluating IMM-1-104 in human clinical trials, with plans to enroll the first patient in the fourth quarter of this year. The preclinical data we are sharing today further support IMM-1-104's differentiation from previously developed therapies, and showcase the potential of its deep cyclic inhibition mechanism to achieve our goal of selectively impacting RAS mutant tumors with greater durability and reduced overall toxicity."

In this preclinical study, Immuneering modeled binimetinib versus IMM-1-104 in SK-MEL-2 in vivo. SK-MEL-2 is a melanoma tumor cell line that displays a similar molecular profile to approximately half of the patients who participated in the Phase 3 NEMO study, displaying an NRAS-Q61R mutation. The NEMO study results showed binimetinib did not improve overall survival compared with dacarbazine (11.0 vs. 10.1 months, respectively) in NRAS mutant melanoma patients and, in fact, showed a 50% increase in serious adverse events (34% vs. 22%, respectively)1.