Melbourne, Australia 28 April 2025 – ImmVirX Pty Limited, a life sciences company focused on developing next-generation, receptor targeted oncolytic RNA immunotherapies to transform outcomes for patients with some of the most prevalent and challenging cancer types, is pleased to announce it has expanded its clinical trial collaboration and supply agreement with Innovent Biologics, Inc. (“Innovent”) (HKEX: 01801) into Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC), the most prevalent form of liver cancer.
Under the expanded collaboration, the companies will evaluate a combination therapy consisting of ImmVirX’s investigational oncolytic virus, IVX037, and Innovent’s TYVYT® (sintilimab), the market-leading anti-PD1 (programmed death receptor-1) in liver cancer patients in China.
The collaboration is progressing well. The ongoing Phase 1b study is actively recruiting patients across seven sites, with additional sites to follow. To date, the study has focused on assessing the anti-cancer activity and tolerability of intra-tumoral IVX037 administered in combination with intravenous sintilimab in patients with advanced colorectal, ovarian and gastric cancers. Innovent is supplying TYVYT® (sintilimab) for this multi-center trial in Australia. With this expansion, an additional 15 liver cancer patients will be enrolled in the study.
“We are excited to expand the current Phase 1b study of IVX037 and sintilimab to include patients with advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma. This indication is a particularly difficult cancer to treat, with limited treatment options available to patients. We hope the encouraging outcomes observed from the completed Phase 1a and now ongoing Phase 1b studies will continue as we treat patients with HCC,” said Dr Mark Wong, Principal Investigator of the study.
ImmVirX Chief Executive Officer, Dr Malcolm McColl, commented: “I am thrilled that Innovent is eager to expand our collaboration of the combination study of IVX037 with TYVYT® to additional solid tumors. Innovent is an impressive company and a strong partner during this early stage of our work together.”
“We are encouraged by the early progress in the study combining IVX037 with our anti-PD-1 therapy, TYVYT® (sintilimab ). We believe their complementary mechanisms to engage the immune system to fight cancer may also prove effective in liver cancer. We look forward to continuing our work with ImmVirX and to seeing promising results from this collaboration,” said Dr. Hui Zhou, Senior Vice President of Innovent.
About ImmVirX:
ImmVirX is developing novel oncolytic immunotherapies to create powerful new cancer therapy combinations. Our lead asset, IVX037, is in clinical studies with our second agent, IVX055, in pre-clinical development. Our novel oncolytic immunotherapy harnesses the power of viruses to preferentially infect and kill cancer cells and induce local and systemic anti-tumour immune responses.
The proprietary bio-selection platform enables the development of RNA viruses targeting specific receptor proteins highly expressed on a range of cancer cell types, allowing them to selectively enter, replicate in, and destroy tumour cells while creating beneficial changes in the tumour micro-environment, potentially leading to the generation of specific innate and adaptive immune responses against cancer cells.
In this way, our oncolytic immunotherapies are intended to increase the effectiveness of current therapies, primarily immune checkpoint inhibitors and CAR-T cell therapies, in fighting cancers of high unmet need including colorectal, gastric, ovarian and liver cancer.
About Innovent
Innovent is a leading biopharmaceutical company founded in 2011 with the mission to empower patients worldwide with affordable, high-quality biopharmaceuticals. The company discovers, develops, manufactures and commercializes innovative medicines that target some of the most intractable diseases. Its pioneering therapies treat cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic, autoimmune and eye diseases. Innovent has launched 15 products in the market. It has 3 new drug applications under regulatory review, 3 assets in Phase III or pivotal clinical trials and 16 more molecules in early clinical stage. Innovent partners with over 30 global healthcare companies, including Eli Lilly, Sanofi, Incyte, Adimab, LG Chem and MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Guided by the motto, “Start with Integrity, Succeed through Action,” Innovent maintains the highest standard of industry practices and works collaboratively to advance the biopharmaceutical industry so that first-rate pharmaceutical drugs can become widely accessible. For more information, visit www.innoventbio.com, or follow Innovent on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Website: https://www.immvirx.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ImmVirX
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/immvirx
Media Contact
Dr. Malcolm McColl
Chief Executive Officer, Acting Chairman and Co-Founder
E: [email protected]
