HONG KONG, Sept. 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- September 30, 2024, Akeso (9926. HK) announced that its internally developed PD-1/CTLA-4 bispecific antibody, cadonilimab, has received approval from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for a new indication: cadonilimab in combination with fluoropyrimidine and platinum-based chemotherapy for first-line treatment of patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction (G/GEJ) adenocarcinoma. This is the second indication approval for cadonilimab in China, following its initial approval for marketing in June 2022.

The approval of the new indication for cadonilimab combination therapy for first-line treatment of gastric/GEJ cancer is based on the COMPASSION-15/AK104-302 study. In the COMPASSION-15 study, the proportion of patients with PD-L1 CPS < 5 and PD-L1 CPS < 1 in the Intention-to-Treat (ITT) population reached 49.8% and 23%, respectively, which is significantly higher than the data disclosed in previous phase III studies of other immunotherapies for first-line treatment.

In November 2023, the interim analysis of the study achieved the primary endpoint of overall survival (OS). The results showed that the cadonilimab combination therapy significantly reduced the risk of death in advanced gastric cancer patients across all PD-L1 expression levels (including those with PD-L1 CPS ≥5 and