Nerviano Medical Sciences says it has successfully negotiated with Germany’s Merck KGaA the buy back of the full world-wide rights for NMS-293, a potent, highly selective PARP1 inhibitor.
The oral drug is designed to avoid trapping, a known cause of toxicity in healthy cells, making it ideal for combination with DNA-damaging agents like chemotherapies, or ADC payloads, including in homologous recombination repair proficient tumors.
In 2022, Merck agreed to pay up to $65 million for the option to license the next-gen brain penetrant PARP1 inhibitor. At the time, NMS-293 was in early clinical development for the treatment of patients with BRCA mutated tumors as single agent and with recurrent glioblastoma, in combination with temozolomide (TMZ).
Italy-based Nerviano says it is now is actively preparing NMS-293 for two phase 1/2 trials to explore solid tumors.