Alpine stops enrollment of davoceticept trials after 2nd patient death

Seattle, USA-based immunotherapy company Alpine Immune Sciences (Nasdaq: ALPN) dipped 5% on Monday, after saying it has voluntarily stopped enrollment in two studies – NEON-1 and NEON-2 - of its davoceticept drug candidate following the death of a second patient in one of the trials.

Davoceticept was being investigated in combination with pembrolizumab, US pharma giant Merck & Co’s (NYSE: MRK) blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda, in adults with advanced malignancies.

As a result, Alpine plans to focus its development resources primarily on ALPN-303, a potentially best-in-class dual BAFF/APRIL B cell cytokine inhibitor in development for multiple autoantibody-related inflammatory diseases, as well as acazicolcept (ALPN-101), a potentially first-in-class dual CD28/ICOS inhibitor in development for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in collaboration with AbbVie.