Singapore – ASLAN Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company targeting cancers that are both highly prevalent in Asia and orphan indications in the United States and Europe, announced that two abstracts on varlitinib and ASLAN003 have been accepted for presentation at the upcoming 2018 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Munich, Germany on 19 - 23 Oct 2018.

Varlitinib is a highly potent pan-HER inhibitor that targets the human epidermal growth factor receptors HER1, HER2 and HER4. At ESMO, new data will be presented from a phase 1 study to determine the safety, tolerability and maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of varlitinib in combination with oxaliplatin and capecitabine (COX) or oxaliplatin and 5-FU (FOL) in advanced solid tumours. The investigator-initiated trial was conducted by Dr Matthew Chau Hsien Ng and supported by ASLAN and the Singapore National Medical Research Council.

30 patients were enrolled and had a median of 3 lines of prior chemotherapy. Of 28 patients evaluable for response, 3 showed partial response (PR), 16 experienced stable disease (SD) and the disease control rate (PR and SD for at least 12 weeks) was 46%. The maximum tolerated dose for varlitinib in combination with COX and FOL was 300mg BID and durable efficacy was seen in patients with biliary cancers and colorectal cancer, with 5 patients having progression free survival over 220 days up to 645 days.

ASLAN003 is an orally active, potent inhibitor of dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) that has the potential to be first-in-class in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). ASLAN003 has demonstrated the ability to induce differentiation in AML cell lines, xenograft models, and the primary AML blast obtained from patients. In a second poster, ASLAN will present the study design of an ongoing phase 2A dose optimisation study of ASLAN003 as monotherapy in AML patients who are ineligible for standard therapy.