FOSTER CITY, Calif., Oct. 31, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Apollomics Inc. (Nasdaq: APLM), a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company developing multiple oncology drug candidates to address difficult-to-treat and treatment-resistant cancers, today announced the addition of two new cohorts in its ongoing global multi-cohort Phase 2 SPARTA study (NCT03175224), which is evaluating vebreltinib (APL-101) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and other solid tumors (i.e., brain, esophageal, colon, pancreatic cancer) with MET dysregulations, including exon14 skipping mutation, c-MET amplification and MET fusion.

The first new cohort, labeled C-2, is evaluating the addition of vebreltinib to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor, such as osimertinib, for patients with EGFR-mutated NSCLC progressing on first line EGFR inhibitor therapy to address acquired resistance due to c-MET amplification. The second new cohort, labeled F, will evaluate vebreltinib monotherapy in histology-agnostic solid tumors with wild type MET gene that have high expression of c-MET and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF).

“We are pleased to further expand the potential target indications in our Phase 2 SPARTA study by the addition of two new cohorts to include patients for whom there are no approved target therapy for addressing the tumor proliferation and/or treatment resistance resulting from dysregulations in the HGF/c-MET axis,” said Peony Yu, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Apollomics.

A separate, ongoing Phase 1/2 investigator sponsored trial (IST), being conducted at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., is exploring the safety and efficacy of combining vebreltinib with frontline osimertinib in patients with EGFR-mutated NSCLC. Dr. Bindiya Patel and Dr. Siddhartha Devarakonda presented this study during a poster session on September 11, 2023, at the World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Singapore. A link to the WCLC poster is available under the Investors tab of the Apollomics website at https://www.apollomicsinc.com.

Dr. Devarakonda who designed and led this IST study stated, “Combination therapy with vebreltinib and osimertinib features dual MET and EGFR inhibition, and has the potential to induce deep and durable responses in patients with EGFR-mutated lung cancer.”

Vebreltinib is a potent, small molecule, orally bioavailable and highly selective c-MET inhibitor. It works by inhibiting the aberrant activation of the HGF/c-MET axis, a key pathway involved in tumor growth, proliferation, and the development of resistance to certain targeted therapies such as osimertinib. By targeting c-MET dysregulation, vebreltinib is potentially a new treatment for patients with cancers driven by c-MET alterations for which there are no approved targeted treatment, such as solid tumors with MET amplification or solid tumors with MET fusion inclusive of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) with PTPRZ1-MET fusion, and histology-agnostic solid tumors with HGF and MET over-expression, as well as its potential for better serving the needs of patients with NSCLC harboring MET exon 14 skipping mutations than currently available treatments.