Eisai and Halozyme Sign Collaboration Agreement to Investigate Halaven® (Eribulin) and PEGPH20 in Metastatic Breast Cancer

HATFIELD, England and SAN DIEGO, July 31, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Clinical trial will explore whether eribulin in combination with PEGPH20 can improve overall response rate in women with advanced breast cancer

Eisai Co., Ltd. and Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: HALO) today sign a clinical collaboration agreement that will evaluate Halaven^® (eribulin) in combination with Halozyme's investigational PEGPH20 (PEGylated recombinant human hyaluronidase) in first line HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. Under the agreement, the companies will jointly conduct and share the costs of a Phase 1b/II clinical study seeking to determine whether the combination therapy of eribulin and PEGPH20 can improve overall response rate (the proportion of women that have a predefined reduction in tumour burden), in advanced breast cancer patients with high levels of hyaluronan.

PEGPH20 is an investigational drug administered intravenously that targets the degradation of hyaluronan, a glycosaminoglycan - or chain of natural sugars throughout the body - that can accumulate around cancer cells to inhibit other therapies. By degrading hyaluronan, PEGPH20 increases blood flow to the tumour which may allow cancer therapies to be more efficiently delivered to their target. The collaborative study will seek to determine whether the combination therapy of eribulin and PEGPH20 can improve overall response rate in patients with high levels of hyaluronan. In hyaluronan-rich triple-negative breast preclinical animal models, the addition of PEGPH20 to eribulin significantly increased tumour growth inhibition and overall tumour regressions, when compared to eribulin alone^[1].

Eribulin is the first in the halichondrin class of microtubule dynamics inhibitors with a novel mechanism of action. Structurally eribulin is a modified and synthetically produced analog of halichondrin B, a natural product isolated from the marine sponge Halichondria okadai. Eribulin is believed to work by inhibition of the growth phase of microtubule dynamics which prevents cell division. Eribulin is currently approved in more than 60 countries around the world, which include all of the European Union, Canada, United States, Russia, Switzerland, South Korea, Japan and Singapore.