CanWell Pharma announced that its First-in-Class innovative drug CAN2109, has been granted IND approval by the China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). CanWell plans to immediately initiate the patient enrollment to evaluate CAN2109’s safety, PK, PD and clinical activity for the treatment of various solid tumors.
CAN2109 is a novel long-acting Immunogenic cell death (ICD) inducer, which acts as a bi-functional immune modulator to kill tumor cells while preserving tumor antigens for efficient cross-priming of tumor-specific T cells. CAN2109 not only possesses direct tumor cell killings, but also induces strong cell-mediated immune responses including both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells activation. In addition, CAN2109 synergizes with checkpoint inhibitors to induce systemic immunity with regression of local and distant tumors.