LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca is castingits net wider in the hot cancer immunotherapy field through aclinical trial collaboration with U.S. biotech firm Advaxis that will test drugs from both companies incombination.
Britain-based AstraZeneca - the target of an unsuccessful$118 billion takeover bid by Pfizer earlier this year -is banking on widespread use of its immunotherapy drugs, whichboost the body's immune system, to fight a range of tumours.
Under the deal with Advaxis, its so-called anti-PD-L1 drugMEDI4736 will be evaluated in a Phase I/II clinical studytogether with the U.S. company's cancer vaccine ADXS-HPV inpatients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cervicalcancer and HPV-associated head and neck cancer.
Since the two medicines work in different ways, the hope isthat combining them will produce a stronger response.
AstraZeneca is already running other combination trialsusing its own in-house products. Its MedImmune biotech unit alsohas a similar external collaboration with Incyte tostudy MEDI4736 with Incyte's drug INCB24360. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; editing by Jason Neely)
Astrazeneca (AZN)
