Regeneron Pharmaceuticals announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for priority review the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for PD-1 inhibitor Libtayo? (cemiplimab-rwlc) to treat patients with first-line locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with ≥50% PD-L1 expression. The target action date for the FDA decision is February 28, 2021.

The sBLA is supported by results from a Phase 3 open-label, randomized, multi-center trial that investigated the first-line treatment of Libtayo monotherapy compared to platinum-doublet chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC whose tumor cells expressed PD-L1, including those whose cancers had confirmed PD-L1 expression of ≥50% using the PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx kit. Results were recently presented at the 2020 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Virtual Congress in September.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is also assessing Libtayo in advanced NSCLC with ≥50% PD-L1 expression and a decision is expected in the second quarter of 2021. Libtayo is the first systemic treatment approved in the U.S. and European Union (EU) for adults with metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) or locally advanced CSCC who are not candidates for curative surgery or curative radiation.

Libtayo is being jointly developed and commercialized by Regeneron and Sanofi under a global collaboration agreement. The use of Libtayo to treat advanced NSCLC is investigational and has not been fully evaluated by any regulatory authority.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, with more than 2.2 million new cases expected globally, and 228,000 new cases expected in the U.S. in 2020. Approximately 85% of all lung cancers are NSCLC, and an estimated 25% to 30% of these cases are expected to test positive for PD-L1 in ≥50% of tumor cells. While immunotherapies have transformed advanced NSCLC treatment in recent years, there remains an unmet need to optimize the identification and treatment of patients with high PD-L1 expression and offer additional treatment options.

Libtayo is a fully-human monoclonal antibody targeting the immune checkpoint receptor PD-1 on T-cells. By binding to PD-1, Libtayo has been shown to block cancer cells from using the PD-1 pathway to suppress T-cell activation.