Mersana Therapeutics initiates expansion portion of UPGRADE-A trial

Mersana Therapeutics announced that patient dosing is underway in the expansion portion of its UPGRADE-A clinical trial of UpRi in combination with carboplatin in platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer. UpRi is Mersana’s first-in-class NaPi2b-targeting ADC with a novel scaffold-linker-payload designed to enable a high drug-to-antibody ratio and controlled bystander effect. "While the combination of carboplatin and paclitaxel has historically served as the standard of care in early lines of therapy for platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer, it is limited by distinct tolerability and side effect challenges that can include severe neutropenia, peripheral neuropathy and alopecia," said Dr. Arvin Yang, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Mersana Therapeutics. "With UPGRADE-A, we are investigating the potential benefits of replacing paclitaxel with UpRi in the induction phase of treatment and then continuing UpRi as maintenance monotherapy. We are pleased to enter this exciting new phase of the trial." Mersana expects to report interim data from UPGRADE-A in the second half of 2023.