Clinical stage biotech company Phanes Therapeutics Inc announced on Thursday the release of updated positive Phase 2 results of spevatamig (PT886) in combination with chemotherapy in frontline (1L) treatment of metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).

Data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting 2026 show that spevatamig, an anti-CLDN18.2/CD47 bsAb, in combination with chemotherapy, has the potential to be an effective 1L treatment in patients with metastatic PDAC (mPDAC).

The design of spevatamig with an optimised anti-CD47 arm mitigates haematological toxicity and improves GI tolerability, as evidenced by the results of the spevatamig monotherapy and combination therapy studies in which more than 190 patients have been dosed globally. The spevatamig + GnP combination is well tolerated in 1L patients with mPDAC, with no significant additive toxicity to GnP.

2 mg/kg QW spevatamig + GnP showed promising efficacy (52.4% ORR, 90.5% DCR) when compared with the GnP arm in pivotal trials in 1L mPDAC. More than 90% of patients at this dose level had de novo metastatic disease, consistent with the baseline characteristics of the patient populations in pivotal Phase 3 trials.

Median progression-free survival (mPFS) was 7.3 months, and median overall survival (mOS) was 14.7 months in US patients, where the median follow up time is 14.7 months.

Phanes said that overall, the data support further development of spevatamig + GnP in a randomised Phase 3 trial in patients with 1L mPDAC.

Spevatamig is an innate immunity enhancer (I2E), an emerging class of immuno-oncology (IO) agents. Unlike immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) (also known as anti-PD1/anti-PD-L1 drugs) which activate T cells to kill cancer cells, I2Es activate macrophages and dendritic cells to recognise and destroy cancer cells, providing an alternative mechanism to leverage the immune system to attack tumours, especially so-called 'cold tumours' that do not respond to ICIs.