Corvus Pharmaceuticals Initiates Phase 3 Clinical Trial of CPI-006 for Patients with COVID-19

Novel immunotherapy approach designed to stimulate immune response by activating B cells to enhance polyclonal antibody production and potentially reduce hospitalization and progression to respiratory failure

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study expected to enroll ~1,000 patients across global sites with results expected in Q4 2021

Company to host conference call and webcast today at 8:30 a.m. ET / 5:30 a.m. PT

BURLINGAME, Calif., Feb. 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRVS), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced that it has initiated a Phase 3 clinical trial of CPI-006 for the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. The study is expected to enroll approximately 1,000 patients at sites in North America, Europe, South Africa and Latin America.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to patients and the healthcare system, and it is critical that we develop new therapies that can improve patient outcomes,” said Gerard J. Criner, MD, FACP, FACCP, Chair and Professor of Thoracic Medicine and Surgery at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and Director of the Temple Lung Center and one of the lead investigators of the trial. “CPI-006 has already shown promising results in COVID-19 patients and its proposed mechanism of stimulating the immune system to specifically target the SARS-CoV-2 virus may have several potential advantages over existing therapies, including the potential to address recently emerging variants of the virus. We look forward to offering this therapy to our patients as part of the Phase 3 study.”

CPI-006 is a humanized monoclonal antibody that is designed to bind to and activate B cells that Corvus believes has the potential to provide a unique immunotherapy approach for the treatment of infectious diseases, including COVID-19. In a Phase 1 study involving 28 hospitalized, high-risk patients with moderate COVID-19 treated with CPI-006, no patients progressed to requiring mechanical ventilation and the median time to discharge from the hospital was 3.5 days. This compares favorably to published reports showing that, on average, approximately 20% of similarly affected patients will progress to requiring invasive mechanical ventilation. Patients in the study generated high titers of polyclonal antibodies against a diverse range of targets on the SARS-CoV-2 virus that were sustained over several months. They also had increased levels of circulating memory B cells, which could lead to long-term immunity.