Search

Activity of FGF401 in biochemical kinase assays

Activity of FGF401 in PDXs

Details on materials and methods

PK and PK/PD of FGF401 in mice

FGF401 activity in cancer cell lines

PK and anti-tumor activity of FGF401 in rats

Activity of FGF401, BLU-554 and H3B-6527 in FGF19/FGFR4/KLB+ HCC cell lines

This file provides the full characterization of FGF401

Pharmacologic profiling of FGF401 in cancer cell lines

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary malignancy of the liver and it is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Recently, aberrant signaling through the FGF19/FGFR4 axis has been implicated in HCC. Here, we describe the development of FGF401, a highly potent and selective, first in class, reversible-covalent small-molecule inhibitor of the kinase activity of FGFR4. FGF401 is exquisitely selective for FGFR4 versus the other FGFR paralogues FGFR1, FGFR2, FGFR3, and all other kinases in the kinome. FGF401 has excellent drug-like properties showing a robust pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamics/efficacy relationship, driven by a fraction of time above the phospho-FGFR4 IC90 value. FGF401 has remarkable antitumor activity in mice bearing HCC tumor xenografts and patient-derived xenograft models that are positive for FGF19, FGFR4, and KLB. FGF401 is the first FGFR4 inhibitor to enter clinical trials, and a phase I/II study is currently ongoing in HCC and other solid malignancies.

FGF401 versus sorafenib; FGF401 PD markers

Supplementary Data from Transient Inhibition of the JAK/STAT Pathway Prevents B-ALL Development in Genetically Predisposed Mice

Preventing development of childhood B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), a disease with devastating effects, is a longstanding and unsolved challenge. Heterozygous germline alterations in the PAX5 gene can lead to B-ALL upon accumulation of secondary mutations affecting the JAK/STAT signaling pathway. Preclinical studies have shown that this malignant transformation occurs only under immune stress such as exposure to infectious pathogens. Here we show in Pax5+/− mice that transient, early-life administration of clinically relevant doses of ruxolitinib, a JAK1/2 inhibitor, significantly mitigates the risk of B-ALL following exposure to infection; 1 of 29 animals treated with ruxolitinib developed B-ALL versus 8 of 34 untreated mice. Ruxolitinib treatment preferentially targeted Pax5+/− versus wild-type B-cell progenitors and exerted unique effects on the Pax5+/− B-cell progenitor transcriptional program. These findings provide the first in vivo evidence for a potential strategy to prevent B-ALL development., C. Cobaleda and C. Vicente-Dueñas labs are members of the EU COST Action LEGEND (CA16223). Research in C. Vicente-Dueñas group has been funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III through the project " PI17/00167 and by a “Miguel Servet Grant” [CPII19/00024 - AES 2017-2020; co-funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)/European Social Fund (ESF) "A way to make Europe"/"Investing in your future"]. J.J. Yang and K.E. Nichols receive funding from the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC) and R01CA241452 from the NCI. Research in ISG group is partially supported by FEDER and by SAF2015-64420-R MINECO/FEDER, UE, RTI2018-093314-B-I00 MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE, 9659122185-122185-4-21 MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE, by Junta de Castilla y León (UIC-017, CSI001U16, CSI234P18, and CSI144P20). M. Ramírez-Orellana and I. Sánchez-García have been supported by the Fundacion Unoentrecienmil (CUNINA project). C. Cobaleda, M. Ramírez-Orellana, and I. Sánchez-García have been supported by the Fundación Científica de la Asociación Española contra el Cáncer (PRYCO211305SANC). A. Casado-García (CSI067-18) and M. Isidro-Hernández (CSI021-19) are supported by FSE-Conserjería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León 2019 and 2020 (ESF, European Social Fund) fellowship, respectively. J. Raboso-Gallego is supported by a scholarship from University of Salamanca co-financed by Banco Santander and ESF. S. Alemán-Arteaga is supported by an Ayuda para Contratos predoctorales para la formación de doctores (PRE2019-088887).

[Image: see text] Asparagine deprivation by l-asparaginase (L-ASNase) is an effective therapeutic strategy in acute lymphoblastic leukemia, with resistance occurring due to upregulation of ASNS, the only human enzyme synthetizing asparagine (Annu. Rev. Biochem.2006, 75 (1), 629–654). l-Asparaginase efficacy in solid tumors is limited by dose-related toxicities (OncoTargets and Therapy 2017, pp 1413–1422). Large-scale loss of function genetic in vitro screens identified ASNS as a cancer dependency in several solid malignancies (Cell2017, 170 (3), 564–576.e16. Cell2017, 170 (3), 577–592.e10). Here we evaluate the therapeutic potential of targeting ASNS in melanoma cells. While we confirm in vitro dependency on ASNS silencing, this is largely dispensable for in vivo tumor growth, even in the face of asparagine deprivation, prompting us to characterize such a resistance mechanism to devise novel therapeutic strategies. Using ex vivo quantitative proteome and transcriptome profiling, we characterize the compensatory mechanism elicited by ASNS knockout melanoma cells allowing their survival. Mechanistically, a genome-wide CRISPR screen revealed that such a resistance mechanism is elicited by a dual axis: GCN2-ATF4 aimed at restoring amino acid levels and MAPK-BCLXL to promote survival. Importantly, pharmacological inhibition of such nodes synergizes with l-asparaginase-mediated asparagine deprivation in ASNS deficient cells suggesting novel potential therapeutic combinations in melanoma.

FGF19 signaling through the FGFR4/β-klotho receptor complex has been shown to be a key driver of growth and survival in a subset of hepatocellular carcinomas, making selective FGFR4 inhibition an attractive treatment opportunity. A kinome-wide sequence alignment highlighted a poorly conserved cysteine residue within the FGFR4 ATP-binding site at position 552, two positions beyond the gate-keeper residue. Several strategies for targeting this cysteine to identify FGFR4 selective inhibitor starting points are summarized which made use of both rational and unbiased screening approaches. The optimization of a 2-formylquinoline amide hit series is described in which the aldehyde makes a hemithioacetal reversible-covalent interaction with cysteine 552. Key challenges addressed during the optimization are improving the FGFR4 potency, metabolic stability, and solubility leading ultimately to the highly selective first-in-class clinical candidate roblitinib.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary malignancy of the liver and it is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Recently, aberrant signaling through the FGF19/FGFR4 axis has been implicated in HCC. Here, we describe the development of FGF401, a highly potent and selective, first in class, reversible-covalent small-molecule inhibitor of the kinase activity of FGFR4. FGF401 is exquisitely selective for FGFR4 versus the other FGFR paralogues FGFR1, FGFR2, FGFR3, and all other kinases in the kinome. FGF401 has excellent drug-like properties showing a robust pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamics/efficacy relationship, driven by a fraction of time above the phospho-FGFR4 IC90 value. FGF401 has remarkable antitumor activity in mice bearing HCC tumor xenografts and patient-derived xenograft models that are positive for FGF19, FGFR4, and KLB. FGF401 is the first FGFR4 inhibitor to enter clinical trials, and a phase I/II study is currently ongoing in HCC and other solid malignancies.

Diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common histological subtype of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, comprising 30% to 40% of all newly diagnosed cases. DLBCL is a biologically and clinically diverse disease with more than a dozen subtypes classified by the World Health Organization (WHO). Gene expression profiling groups DLBCL into three molecular subtypes, named according to their cell of origin, and which include germinal center B-cell-like (GCB) DLBCL, activated B-cell-like (ABC) DLBCL and primary mediastinal B cell lymphoma (PMBL). The current standard of care (SoC) is R-CHOP chemo-immunotherapy. Although the SoC is curative in a substantial proportion of patients, 40% of patients, especially in the ABC-DLBCL subtype, do not achieve durable remissions and suffer from progressive disease. In ABC-DLBCL, recurrent mutations in the B-cell receptor (BCR) and Toll-like receptor (TLR) pathways lead to constitutive NF-κB signaling. Mutations in the BCR pathway include gain-of-function mutations of CD79A/B (~20%) and CARD11 (~10%), and loss-of-function mutations of A20 (~25%). In the TLR pathway, MYD88 is commonly mutated (~37%). In recent years, knowledge of these aberrantly regulated pathways and their underlying mutations guided the development and investigation of newer molecular targeted agents, e.g. BTK, SYK, PI3K, PKC and MALT1 inhibitors. Among these strategies, inhibition of MALT1 provides the advantage that it is downstream of most of the reported BCR pathway mutations, including CARD11 mutations, and most of the targeted kinases with respect to potentially emerging resistance. However, no MALT1 inhibitor is in the clinic until now. Here, we report the identification of pyrazolopyrimidines as a new class of allosteric MALT1 inhibitors and their optimization for in vivo. The lead compound shows nanomolar potency in biochemical and cellular MALT1 protease reporter assays. In addition, pyrazolopyrimidines are highly selective for MALT1 and demonstrate differential cell killing of CARD11 mutant ABC-DLBCL cells vs control cells in proliferation assays. Furthermore, we demonstrate in vivo activity of pyrazolopyrimidines in CD79 and CARD11 mutant ABC-DLBCL xenograft models, with the lead compound causing regression in a CARD11 mutant xenograft model. Citation Format: Andreas Weiss, Thomas Radimerski, Daniel Wyss, Rita Andraos, Alexandra Buhles, Dario Sterker, Jean Quancard, Carole Pissot, Oliver Simic, Marc Bigaud, Frederic Bornancin, Achim Schlapbach, Catherine Regnier, Paul McSheehy, Elisabeth Buchdunger, Markus Wartmann, Martin Renatus, Ralf Endres, William Sellers, Francesco Hofmann. Pyrazolopyrimidines as novel selective allosteric MALT1 inhibitors with in vivo activity in ABC-DLBCL [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1879.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the seventh most common cancer worldwide and the third leading cause of cancer-related death. Sorafenib is the only targeted agent to show a marginal improvement in overall survival (OS) for patients with advanced HCC. Recent data have implicated aberrant activation of the FGF19-FGFR4/KLB axis as the driver of certain forms of HCC, making this pathway a novel therapeutic target in this disease. The first evidence for this is the finding that aberrant expression of FGF19, as a consequence of gene amplification and other not yet known mechanisms, occurs in subsets of HCC’s and HCC cell lines leading to constitutive FGFR4 activation. In this setting, conditional knock down of FGF19, as well as its receptors FGFR4 and KLB, suppresses proliferation of HCC cell lines, supporting the notion that FGF19 activates FGFR4 in an autocrine fashion. Secondly, in transgenic mouse models, FGF19 produced by non-tumor cells at an ectopic site (skeletal muscle) acts in a paracrine fashion on the liver hepatocytes leading to liver dysplasia and HCC. In these mice, tumorigenesis is abolished in an FGFR4 null background, as well as upon treatment with anti-FGF19 and anti-FGFR4 blocking antibodies. Thus, we anticipate that targeted therapies aimed at blocking the FGFR4 pathway might be efficacious in subsets of HCC’s. We have identified and developed NVP-FGF401, a first in class, highly selective and potent FGFR4 inhibitor that is currently in PhI/II clinical testing. NVP-FGF401 binds in a reversible covalent manner to the FGFR4 kinase domain and it inhibits FGFR4 with an IC50 of 1.1 nM. In biochemical assays, it shows at least 1,000 fold selectivity against of panel of 65 kinases and in a kinome wide scan, consisting of 456 kinases, FGFR4 was the only target of NVP-FGF401. In xenograft animal models in vivo, NVP-FGF401 showed a consistent pharmacokinetic / pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) relationship with phospho-FGFR4 over total FGFR4 (p/tFGFR4) levels in tumor robustly inhibited in a dose dependent manner. The data support a lowest observed trough concentration (Ctrough) driven PD/efficacy relationship. The anti-tumor activity was confirmed across several xenograft animal models, as well as in patient-derived tumor xenografts (PDX) established in mice. The excellent drug-like properties of NVP-FGF401 drove us to test its efficacy in HCC patients in a PhI/II study, being the first selective FGFR4 inhibitor to ever enter into clinical trials (NCT02325739). Citation Format: Diana Graus Porta, Andreas Weiss, Robin A. Fairhurst, Markus Wartmann, Christelle Stamm, Flavia Reimann, Alexandra Buhles, Jaqueline Kinyamu-Akunda, Dario Sterker, Masato Murakami, Youzhen Wang, Jeffrey Engelman, Francesco Hofmann, William R. Sellers. NVP-FGF401, a first-in-class highly selective and potent FGFR4 inhibitor for the treatment of HCC [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2098. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-2098

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary malignancy of the liver and a deadly disease. Treatment options are limited and prognosis generally is poor. Aberrant signaling through the fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19) - fibroblast growth factor receptor 4 (FGFR4) axis has been implicated in the development of HCC, and recently FGF19 has been determined as a specific driver gene amplification in a subset of liver tumors and cancer cell lines. Here, we describe the cellular and in vivo profile of NVP-FGF401, a highly potent and selective, first in class, reversible-covalent small-molecule inhibitor of the kinase activity of FGFR4. NVP-FGF401 is exquisitely selective for FGFR4 versus other FGFR family members and all other kinases. We show that among the FGF19-amplified liver cancer cells in the cancer cell line encyclopedia (CCLE), only those with concomitant expression of β-klotho (KLB), a co-receptor for FGF19 that facilitates its binding to FGFR4, are sensitive to NVP-FGF401. NVP-FGF401 has good oral PK properties and shows an excellent in vivo PK/PD relationship. NVP-FGF401 has remarkable anti-tumor activity in mice bearing HCC tumor xenografts and PDX models that are positive for FGF19, FGFR4 and KLB. NVP-FGF401 is the first FGFR4 inhibitor to enter clinical trials, and a PhI/II study is currently ongoing in HCC and other types of solid tumors. Citation Format: Andreas Weiss, Diana Graus Porta, Flavia Reimann, Alexandra Buhles, Christelle Stamm, Robin A. Fairhurst, Jacqueline Kinyamu-Akunda, Dario Sterker, Masato Murakami, Markus Wartmann, Youzhen Wang, Jeffrey A. Engelman, Francesco Hofmann, Wiliam R. Sellers. NVP-FGF401: Cellular and in vivo profile of a novel highly potent and selective FGFR4 inhibitor for the treatment of FGF19/FGFR4/KLB+ tumors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2103. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-2103

The most common cause of death of cancer sufferers is through the occurrence of metastases. The metastatic behaviour of tumour cells is regulated by extracellular growth factors such as hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), a ligand for the c-Met receptor tyrosine kinase, and aberrant expression/activation of the c-Met receptor is closely associated with metastatic progression. Nk4 (also known as Interleukin (IL)32b) is a competitive antagonist of the HGF c-Met system and inhibits c-Met signalling and tumour metastasis. Nk4 has an additional anti-angiogenic activity independent of its HGF-antagonist function. Angiogenesis-inhibitory as well as cancer-specific apoptosis inducing effects make the Nk4 sequence an attractive candidate for gene therapy of cancer. This study investigates the inhibition of tumour metasasis by gene therapy mediated production of Nk4 by the primary tumour. Optimal delivery of anti-cancer genes is vital in order to achieve the highest therapeutic responses. Non-viral plasmid delivery methods have the advantage of safety and ease of production, providing immediate transgene expression, albeit short-lived in most tumours. Sustained presence of anti-angiogenic molecules is preferable with anti-angiogenic therapies, and the long-term expression mediated by Adeno-associated Virus (AAV) might represent a more appropriate delivery in this respect. However, the incubation time required by AAV vectors to reach appropriate gene expression levels hampers efficacy in many fast-growing murine tumour models. Here, we describe murine trials assessing the effects of Nk4 on the spontaneously metastatic Lewis Lung Carcinoma (LLC) model when delivered to primary tumour via plasmid lipofection or AAV2 vector. Intratumoural AAV-Nk4 administration produced the highest therapeutic response with significant reduction in both primary tumour growth and incidence of lung metastases. Plasmid-mediated therapy also significantly reduced metastatic growth, but with moderate reduction in primary subcutaneous tumour growth. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential for Nk4 gene therapy of metastatic tumours, when delivered by AAV or non-viral methods.

Background Many strategies have been adopted to unleash the potential of gene therapy for cancer, involving a wide range of therapeutic genes delivered by various methods. Immune therapy has become one of the major strategies adopted for cancer gene therapy and seeks to stimulate the immune system to target tumour antigens. In this study, the feasibility of AAV2 mediated immunotherapy of growing tumours was examined, in isolation and combined with anti-angiogenic therapy. Methods Immune-competent Balb/C or C57 mice bearing subcutaneous JBS fibrosarcoma or Lewis Lung Carcinoma (LLC) tumour xenografts respectively were treated by intra-tumoural administration of AAV2 vector encoding the immune up-regulating cytokine granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and the co-stimulatory molecule B7-1 to subcutaneous tumours, either alone or in combination with intra-muscular (IM) delivery of AAV2 vector encoding Nk4 14 days prior to tumour induction. Tumour growth and survival was monitored for all animals. Cured animals were re-challenged with tumourigenic doses of the original tumour type. In vivo cytotoxicity assays were used to investigate establishment of cell-mediated responses in treated animals. Results AAV2-mediated GM-CSF, B7-1 treatment resulted in a significant reduction in tumour growth and an increase in survival in both tumour models. Cured animals were resistant to re-challenge, and induction of T cell mediated anti-tumour responses were demonstrated. Adoptive transfer of splenocytes to naïve animals prevented tumour establishment. Systemic production of Nk4 induced by intra-muscular (IM) delivery of Nk4 significantly reduced subcutaneous tumour growth. However, combination of Nk4 treatment with GM-CSF, B7-1 therapy reduced the efficacy of the immune therapy. Conclusions Overall, this study demonstrates the potential for in vivo AAV2 mediated immune gene therapy, and provides data on the inter-relationship between tumour vasculature and immune cell recruitment.