Full Press Release Details
NuCana Presents Latest Data Demonstrating Clinical Activity and Favorable Safety for NUC-7738 in
Patients with PD-1-Resistant Melanoma
Presented at ESMO IO 2025 include Partial Responses, Durable Disease Control, and No New Safety Signals, Reinforcing Earlier Findings
United Kingdom, December 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - NuCana plc (NASDAQ: NCNA) ("NuCana" or the "Company") presented the latest clinical data at the annual European Society for Medical Oncology ("ESMO")
Immuno-Oncology Congress, December 10-12, 2025, in London.
The data from patients with PD-1 inhibitor-resistant metastatic melanoma treated with NUC-7738 in combination with pembrolizumab continue to demonstrate clinical activity and a favorable safety profile.
All patients had progressive disease prior to starting treatment. Clinical activity includes two partial responses (one confirmed) and seven cases of stable disease, notably including one ongoing stable disease converting to a complete metabolic
response with no detectable active disease. These results further reinforce the initial findings presented at the ESMO Congress 2024.
recent analysis, nine patients have been treated in the Expansion Cohort, which is part of the planned enrollment of up to 28 additional patients. Combined with the 12 patients previously treated in the Dose Confirmation Cohort, this will provide a
total combination dataset comprising up to 40 patients. No new safety signals have been observed, and several patients remain on therapy with ongoing disease control, including one unconfirmed partial response and durable stable disease.
"We are very pleased to share the continued progress from this study," said Hugh S. Griffith, NuCana's Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
"The clinical activity and favorable safety profile of NUC-7738 support its potential to offer meaningful benefit for patients with advanced melanoma who have exhausted current treatment options."
Mr. Griffith added: "These findings support continued enrollment and further clinical advancement as we move toward a potential registrational
One of the study participants, who achieved complete metabolic response, was recently featured in the UK Channel 4 documentary
series Cancer Detectives: Finding the Cures, which also profiled Professor Sarah Blagden, the study's lead investigator and Professor of Experimental Oncology at the University of Oxford.
Details of NuCana's presentation at the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress 2025 are as follows:
Abstract Title: A Phase 2 expansion study of NUC-7738 in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with PD-1 inhibitor-resistant cutaneous melanoma (NuTide:701)
Poster Number: 321TiP
Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Author: Dr Miranda J. Payne
All regular abstracts accepted for presentation at the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress 2025 have been published online via
the ESMO website on Thursday, December 4 at 12:05 p.m. CET (Wednesday, December 3 at 6:05 p.m. ET). All accepted abstracts will be published online in the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress 2025 Abstract Book, a supplement to the
official ESMO journal, Immuno-Oncology and Technology (IOTECH).
More information regarding the 2025 ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress can be found
NuCana is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on significantly improving treatment outcomes for patients with cancer by applying our ProTide
technology to transform some of the most widely prescribed chemotherapy agents, nucleoside analogs, into more effective and safer medicines. While these conventional agents remain part of the standard of care for the treatment of many solid and
hematological tumors, they have significant shortcomings that limit their efficacy, and they are often poorly tolerated. Utilizing our proprietary technology, we are developing new medicines, ProTides, designed to overcome the key limitations of
nucleoside analogs and generate much higher concentrations of anti-cancer metabolites in cancer cells. NuCana's pipeline includes NUC-7738 and NUC-3373. NUC-7738 is a novel anti-cancer agent that disrupts RNA polyadenylation, profoundly impacts gene expression in cancer cells and targets multiple aspects of the tumor microenvironment.
NUC-7738 is in the Phase 2 part of a Phase 1/2 study which is evaluating NUC-7738 as a monotherapy in patients with advanced solid tumors and in combination with
pembrolizumab in patients with melanoma. NUC-3373 is a new chemical entity derived from the nucleoside analog 5-fluorouracil, a widely used chemotherapy agent. NUC-3373 has recently been evaluated in a Phase 1b/2 modular study (NuTide:303) of NUC-3373 in combination with the PD-1 inhibitor
pembrolizumab for patients with advanced solid tumors and in combination with docetaxel for patients with lung cancer, and NuCana is currently evaluating further characterization of mode of action and target indications for further clinical studies
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