Pierre Fabre Laboratories has announced the acquisition of the worldwide rights for PFL-721 and PFL-241 (formerly known as STX-721 and STX-241, respectively) from Antares Therapeutics, Inc., a spin-out of Scorpion Therapeutics, Inc.

Under the terms of the agreement, Pierre Fabre Laboratories will expand its previous agreement with Scorpion Therapeutics to hold the global rights for both assets and will be leading the clinical development of both programs.

PFL-721 is a mutant-specific EGFR exon 20 and HER2 exon 20 inhibitor, soon to transition to dose optimisation within a first-in-human trial in NSCLC. PFL-241 is a mutant-specific, brain penetrant, 4th generation EGFR inhibitor, currently in dose escalation in a first-in-human trial, to address C797S resistance mutations in NSCLC patients.

“With this agreement with Antares, Pierre Fabre Laboratories now owns the global rights for all the assets within our R&D portfolio: exarafenib, PFL-002 (formerly VERT-002), PFL-721 and PFL-241. The R&D team is fully engaged and committed to progressing the clinical development of these programs, aiming at providing novel and differentiated precision medicines to patient populations with significant unmet needs,” said Francesco Hofmann, Head of Research and Development for Medical Care at Pierre Fabre Laboratories.

NSCLC is the most common sub-type of lung cancer and various EGFR mutations are the most frequent drivers of NSCLC, occurring in approximately 14-38 percent of tumours, depending on geography.