Arcus Biosciences, Inc. a clinical-stage, global biopharmaceutical company focused on developing differentiated molecules and combination therapies for people with cancer, today announced a clinical trial collaboration agreement with AstraZeneca (LSE/STO/Nasdaq: AZN) to evaluate casdatifan (AB521), Arcus’s investigational HIF-2a inhibitor, in combination with volrustomig, AstraZeneca’s investigational PD-1/CTLA-4 bispecific antibody, in patients with ccRCC.

“We believe casdatifan has best-in-class potential, based on the observed PK and PD profiles and the emerging clinical data from our ARC-20 study in patients with ccRCC,” said Terry Rosen, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Arcus. “This agreement will enable Arcus and AstraZeneca to collaborate and assess the potential for the novel combination of casdatifan with volrustomig to improve outcomes for patients with ccRCC.”

“Renal cell carcinoma is a known CTLA-4-responsive tumor type, and our first-in-human study with volrustomig monotherapy demonstrated encouraging efficacy in first-line advanced ccRCC,” said Cristian Massacesi, chief medical officer and oncology chief development officer, AstraZeneca. “We are excited by the potential to build on this by combining HIF-2a inhibition with volrustomig to drive deeper and more durable responses for patients.”

As part of this collaboration, AstraZeneca will sponsor and operationalize a study to evaluate the safety and early efficacy of the casdatifan plus volrustomig combination in patients with advanced ccRCC.

This is the second clinical collaboration between Arcus and AstraZeneca. In 2020, the companies announced a clinical collaboration for PACIFIC-8, a registrational Phase 3 study of domvanalimab, an Fc-silent anti-TIGIT antibody, added to backbone global standard-of-care durvalumab, an anti-PD-L1 antibody, in patients with unresectable Stage III non-small cell lung cancer.

Under the Gilead and Arcus collaboration agreement, Gilead has the right to opt-in to development and commercialization for casdatifan after Arcus’s delivery of a qualifying data package.