Portage Biotech to pause further development in PORT-2 iNKT program

Portage Biotech announced the outcome from the company’s comprehensive review of its pipeline in the context of the current capital raising market conditions. The ADPORT-201 adaptive Phase 1a/1b clinical trial of PORT-6 and PORT-7 has been progressing well with strong interest from our eight academic centers in the US. The phase 1a dose escalation portion of the trial is enrolling quickly and there have been no safety signals of concern at the doses evaluated to date. The company looks forward to presenting data from this portion of the trial at a conference later this year. We are also excited about future development with these candidates including combining our potential best-in-class adenosine 2A and adenosine 2B inhibitors at the optimum biologic doses in a biomarker enriched population and collaborating with Merck to study combinations with KEYTRUDA, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy. After a review of Portage’s funding requirements, the Board of Directors has made the difficult decision to pause further drug development in the PORT-2 iNKT program. “This was a difficult decision considering the promising phase 1 safety and translational data from the non-small cell lung and melanoma trial,” said Dr Ian B. Walters, chairman and CEO, “As a result, the company will evaluate a range of potential strategic options which may include among other things, finding a partner for our iNKT program or other corporate transactions.” Portage does not intend to disclose developments with respect to this evaluation unless and until it determines that further disclosure is appropriate or necessary.