Verastem Reports Presentation of Data Supporting FAK Inhibition in Combo with Immunotherapy at Keystone Symposium on Cancer Pathophysiology

Verastem, Inc.

, focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat cancer, today announced the oral presentation of preclinical data by the Company's scientific collaborator David G. DeNardo, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Oncology, Department of Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, at the Keystone Symposium on Cancer Pathophysiology being held March 28 – April 1, 2016 in Breckenridge, CO. "To date, single-agent immunotherapy has achieved limited clinical benefit for patients suffering from pancreatic cancer," said Dr. DeNardo. "This is thought to be due to abundance of tumor-associated immune-suppressive cells in pancreatic tumors along with the dense stroma that prevents T cell entry. Our data show that Verastem's FAK inhibitor dramatically reduced tumor stroma and reduced numbers of immunosuppressive cells in pancreatic cancer models. Further, when the FAK inhibitor was combined with immune checkpoint antibodies, the tumors became highly responsive leading to a near tripling of survival times relative to checkpoint inhibitors alone." Jonathan Pachter, PhD, Verastem Head of Research, added: "The data presented today by Dr. DeNardo at the Keystone Symposium provide important support and rationale for the ongoing Phase 1 dose-escalation clinical study evaluating Verastem's FAK inhibitor VS-6063 in combination with pembrolizumab and gemcitabine in patients with pancreatic cancer." Details for the presentation at the Keystone Symposium on Cancer Pathophysiology are as follows: Oral Presentation Title: Reprogramming the Tumor Microenvironment to Facilitate Responses to Immunotherapy Session: Immune Cells I: Adaptive and Innate Immune Cells in the Tumor Microenvironment (TME) Date and time: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 at 8:00 – 11:15 AM MT A copy of the oral presentation will be available following the presentation at http://bit.ly/R3M6wc