Ascendis’ Phase 1/2 initial trial results of TransCon accepted for ASCO 2023

Ascendis Pharma announced that initial dose escalation data from the Company’s ongoing Phase 1/2 IL-Believe Trial of TransCon IL-2 beta/gamma alone or in combination with pembrolizumab has been accepted for online publication at ASCO 2023, the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology being held June 2-6 in Chicago. TransCon IL-2 beta/gamma is an investigational novel long-acting prodrug with sustained release of an IL-2Rbeta/gamma-selective analog designed to address the drawbacks of interleukin-2 cancer immunotherapy through prolonged activation of IL-2Rbeta/gamma with low Cmax."We look forward to sharing this initial dose escalation data, which will guide our selection of the recommended Phase 2 dose of monotherapy TransCon IL-2 beta/gamma in this ongoing Phase 1/2 trial," said Stina Singel, Executive Vice President, Head of Clinical Development, Oncology at Ascendis Pharma. "Our goal is to address the known shortcomings of current IL-2 immunotherapy, such as short half-life and high Cmax. We believe that our novel approach to achieving sustained activation and expansion of the cytotoxic immune cell types while avoiding upregulation of immunosuppressive cells could, if successful, lead to a potentially best-in-class cancer immunotherapy product."