AVEO Oncology to regain ex-North American rights to AV-203

Shares of US cancer specialist AVEO Oncology (Nasdaq: AVEO) were down 1.85% at $12.21 in early trading today, after revealing it will regain its rights to AV-203 outside of North America, its clinical-stage potent humanized IgG1 monoclonal antibody that targets ErbB3 (also known as HER3), following the voluntary termination of its collaboration and license agreement by China-based CANbridge Life Sciences.

AVEO will regain rights to AV-203 in all territories outside of North America, and CANbridge has initiated the process to transfer all pre-clinical data and materials to AVEO. The transfer of rights and termination of the collaboration and license agreement will become effective on September 5, 2021.

To date, AVEO has completed a Phase I, open-label, dose-escalation study of AV-203 in patients with advanced solid tumors (N=22). In this study, one patient had a dose limiting adverse event and the recommended Phase II dose, or RP2D, is 20mg/kg. One of two neuregulin positive (NRG1+) patients had a partial response. Neuregulin, the only known ligand for ErbB3, is a potential biomarker which may prove to be predictive of AV-203 anti-tumor activity.