Chi-Med Highlights Oral Presentations at 2019 ESMO Asia Annual Meeting

LONDON, Nov. 23, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Hutchison China MediTech Limited (“Chi-Med”) (AIM/Nasdaq: HCM) will share analyses from two clinical studies of savolitinib and fruquintinib at the fifth European Society for Medical Oncology Asia Congress (“ESMO Asia”) on November 22 to 24, 2019 in Singapore.
Savolitinib: the TATTON study was selected as a late-breaking presentation in the Presidential Session at ESMO Asia.Earlier results of this study (cut-off date of August 31, 2017) were first presented on October 17, 2017 at the World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC).¹  Interim results from this study (cut-off date of February 28, 2018) were presented on March 31, 2019 at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting² (clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT02143466). The TATTON trial supports SAVANNAH, an ongoing Phase II clinical trial exploring the combination of savolitinib and Tagrisso^® to overcome mesenchymal epithelial transition receptor (“MET”)-driven endothelial growth factor receptor (“EGFR”)-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (“TKI”) resistance following treatment with Tagrisso^® (clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT03778229).Savolitinib is a potent and selective inhibitor of MET, an enzyme which has been shown to function abnormally in many types of solid tumors.  In clinical studies to date in over 1,000 patients globally, savolitinib has shown promising signs of clinical efficacy in patients with MET gene alterations in lung cancer, kidney cancer, and gastric cancer with an acceptable safety profile.  Chi-Med is currently testing savolitinib in global partnership with AstraZeneca, both as a monotherapy and in combinations. Fruquintinib (Elunate^®): Final results from the Phase II study of fruquintinib in combination with Iressa^® in China in the first-line setting for patients with advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (“NSCLC”) with EGFR activating mutations will be presented.  The primary objective of this exploratory study is to determine the safety and tolerability and median progression-free survival (PFS) of the fruquintinib and Iressa^® combination. Earlier results of this study (cut-off date of October 10, 2017) were first presented on October 15, 2017 at the World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC)³ (clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT02976116).   Fruquintinib is a highly selective and potent oral inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (“VEGFR”) 1/2/3.  VEGFR inhibitors play a pivotal role in blocking tumor angiogenesis.  Fruquintinib was designed to improve kinase selectivity to minimize off-target toxicities, improve tolerability and provide more consistent target coverage.  Chi-Med retains all rights to fruquintinib outside of China and is partnered with Eli Lilly and Company in China.About Chi-Med