ClinicalTrials.gg
RecruitingNCT07698106Updated Oct 29, 2026

Enhancing ICB Efficacy Through IL-1 Inhibition in TNBC

A Phase 1/2 interventional study of Group 1-Isunakinra in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC), sponsored by University Health Network, Toronto. Recruiting at 1 site in Canada. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-10-29.

Sponsored by University Health Network, Toronto · Phase 1/2, Interventional, and Treatment

Updated Oct 29, 2026Now RecruitingFirst site in Canada+3 moreGo to Updates ↓

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Phase
Phase 1/2
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
60
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Where this study stands

Counted across the records on this site · 2026-11-14

Among 96 studies in Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms with a site in Canada — 18 open to participants now, 42 under way, 11 of them phase 3. Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms · Canada.

Planned enrollment
75th of 94
60 · median 151
Started
2026
with 4 others
Phase 1/2
17 of 96
4 open now
Primary completion
2034-08
later than 41 of 41 live
Registered
96th of 96
by date

Among the 96 studies in Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms with a site in Canada, this one is the 75th largest by planned enrollment of the 94 interventional ones that give a count, is one of 5 that started in 2026, is one of 17 in phase 1/2, reaches primary completion later than 41 of the 41 other live ones, and was the 96th registered.

Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms

1,219 studies on the registry are indexed under Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms; 445 are open to participants now.

Browse Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms studies →

Open to participants now

18 of the 96 studies in Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms with a site in Canada are open now. Recruiting first, the newest first:

12 more — sign in →

All 18 open studies →

A study can be open while its sites in Canada have not opened yet or have stopped. Only those recruiting at a site in Canada →

Who these studies take

Of the 331 Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms studies recruiting now, 231 (70%) set no upper age limit and 85 (26%) stop at 75 or younger; 12 take children under 18; 6 take healthy volunteers.

This study: 18 Years and older · all sexes · no healthy volunteers.

The full table on the hub →

This tab as a report to print or save as PDF → With an account.

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Watch this landscapeDownload CSVNarrow it in search →With an account: a weekly mail of what changed among 96 studies in Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms with a site in Canada, or all of them as a file.
02

Study summary

This study is a phase I/II open-label randomized clinical trial to examine whether administration of isunakinra (EBI-005), a modified recombinant IL1 receptor antagonist, can sensitize human TNBC to the PD1 inhibitor-pembrolizumab-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC/P) by changing the tumor microenvironment (TME) via reducing the recruitment of immunosuppressive tumorassociated macrophages (TAMs) and increasing activated cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTLs).

Read the detailed description

Pre-clinical work has found that tumor cell IL-1β drives TAM recruitment, immunosuppression, and tumor progression in TNBC. In fact, experimental evidence, across most cancer types, supports a tumor-promoting role for IL-1β making IL-1β a target with clear therapeutic potential. Roles for IL-1β in growth, invasion and angiogenesis, metastases, stemness and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and tumoral recruitment of TAMs and other pro-tumoral inflammatory cells have been extensively described, and IL-1β upregulation is generally associated with poorer prognosis. The best available clinical information suggests that targeting IL-1β reduces cachexia and remarkably is associated with a greater than 50% reduction of death from all cancers (phase 3 Cantos trial, testing the IL-1β inhibitor canakinumab (Ilaris®) to treat heart failure in a cohort of 10,061 patients). We are the first to suggest that TNBCs are the "perfect storm" for IL-1β production, with Notch providing IL-1β priming and the inflammasome ensuring cleavage, making TNBC an ideal candidate for IL-1β blockade. Supporting this, our most recent pre-clinical work shows that IL1β antagonists can synergize with ICB to eliminate TNBC.

This study is a phase I/II open-label randomized clinical trial evaluating the immunologic effects within the tumor, microenvironment, and host blood of patients treated with either: Group 1 Study participants randomized to Group 1 treatment group will receive isunakinra at a dose of 25mg SC daily x 24 weeks in addition to standard pembrolizumab-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC/P). Group 2 Study participants randomized to Group 2, the control group, will receive standard pembrolizumab-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC/P).

A total of 60 patients will be recruited across 3 institutions, randomized 1:1 to treatment (n=30) versus control (n=30).

The proposed study may provide important data regarding the mechanism of action, safety, feasibility and efficacy of isunakinra when added to NAC/P. It will inform sample size for a definitive phase 3 study designed to prove that isunakinra improves patient outcome.

03

Conditions studied

  • Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Age > 18 years
  2. Newly diagnosed, locally advanced, previously untreated and centrally confirmed TNBC, as defined by the most recent American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)/College of American Pathologists (CAP) guidelines, and staging per current AJCC staging criteria for breast cancer as assessed by the investigator based on radiological and/or clinical assessment:

    Clinical stage T1c/N1-N2, T2-4/N0-2

  3. Provides core needle consisting of at least 2 separate tumor cores from the primary tumor to the central laboratory
  4. (ECOG) performance status of 0 or 1
  5. Demonstrates adequate organ function
  6. Participants of must be willing to use an adequate method of for the course of the study

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Male Gender
  2. Luminal A/B and positive breast cancer
  3. Multifocal early breast cancer
  4. History of invasive ≤5 years prior to signing , except for adequately treated basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer or in situ cervical cancer
  5. Received prior chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and radiation therapy within the past 12 months
  6. Has received prior therapy with an anti-PD1, anti-PDL1/-PDL2 agent or with an agent directed to another co-inhibitory T-cell receptor
  7. Participated in an interventional clinical study with an compound or device within 4 weeks of randomization for this study
  8. Pre-existing inflammatory arthritis
  9. Has received a within 30 days of the first dose of study treatment
  10. Has an active disease that has required systemic treatment in past 2 years (i.e., with use of disease modifying agents, or drugs)
  11. Has a diagnosis of immunodeficiency or is receiving systemic steroid therapy (i.e., dosing exceeding 10 mg daily of prednisone or equivalent) or any other form of immunosuppressive therapy within 7 days prior to the first dose of study treatment
  12. Active or uncontrolled (HIV), or
  13. Has a history of (non-infectious) pneumonitis that required steroids or current pneumonitis
  14. Has an active infection requiring systemic therapy
  15. Has significant cardiovascular disease
  16. Is pregnant or breastfeeding, or expecting to conceive children within the duration of the study
  17. Has a known history of active tuberculosis (TB, Bacillus Tuberculosis)
  18. ≤ 100x109/L. ANC ≤ 1.5 x109/L. ≤ 80 g/L
  19. ≥2
  20. History of stroke or intracranial hemorrhage within 6 months prior to enrollment
  21. Presence of moderate or severe renal function impairment (estimated \<60 mL/min/1.73m2)
  22. Patients with mild, moderate, or severe hepatic impairment or inadequate liver function (total > 23 umol/L, serum albumin \< 35 g/L, > 1.70)
  23. Known to E-coli derived proteins, isunakinra or any component of the product
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(21)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Biopsy and archival tissue

A biopsy takes a small piece of tissue to examine. “Archival tissue” is a sample already taken, for example at diagnosis, and kept by the hospital.

Whether a stored sample will do depends on when it was taken, how much there is and what the study needs. Ask whether the study accepts your stored sample or needs a new biopsy.

ECOG performance status

A scale of how much an illness limits everyday activity. For people being assessed to join a study, scores run from 0 (fully active) to 4; lower is more active.

0
Fully active, no restrictions.
1
Limited in strenuous activity, but walking and able to do light work, such as housework or office work.
2
Walking and able to look after yourself, but unable to work; up and about more than half of waking hours.
3
Able to look after yourself only in part; in bed or a chair more than half of waking hours.
4
Unable to look after yourself at all; in bed or a chair all day.

Studies most often ask for 0–1 or 0–2. Your doctor gives the score; the WHO scale uses the same steps. The full scale also has 5, which records death.

Childbearing potential

Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).

Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.

Contraception

Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.

Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.

HER2

HER2 is a protein, made from the ERBB2 gene, that drives the growth of some cancers. A study may look for a level of the protein, extra copies of the gene, or a particular change in it.

In breast cancer, protein tests are read as HER2-positive, HER2-low or HER2-negative; other cancers use their own rules. Check which test result the study requires.

Cancer (malignancy)

Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.

Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

Investigational drug or device

A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.

It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.

Live vaccines

Vaccines made with a weakened form of the germ, such as measles–mumps–rubella (MMR), chickenpox and yellow fever. They can be risky when the immune system is weakened. Flu injections are not live; the nasal flu spray is.

Autoimmune disease

A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.

Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.

Corticosteroids (steroids)

Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.

Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.

Immunosuppression

A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.

Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.

HIV

The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.

Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.

Hepatitis B tests

Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.

Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.

Hepatitis C tests

Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.

After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.

Platelets

Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.

Hemoglobin (Hb)

The protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. A low level is anaemia, which can cause tiredness and breathlessness. Measured in g/dL or g/L (9 g/dL is 90 g/L).

Creatinine clearance (CrCl)

How quickly the kidneys clear creatinine, a waste product, from the blood. A study may estimate it from a blood test with age, weight and sex (often by the Cockcroft–Gault formula), or measure it using blood and urine collected over a set time. Given in mL/min; higher is better.

Bilirubin

A yellow substance made when red blood cells are broken down, which the liver clears. A high level can mean a problem with the liver or the bile ducts.

Criteria often allow more for people with Gilbert’s syndrome, a harmless inherited condition that raises bilirubin.

INR, PT and aPTT (clotting tests)

Blood tests of how long blood takes to clot. The INR is the prothrombin time (PT) put on a common scale; about 1 is usual for someone not taking a blood thinner.

Criteria often make an exception for people on a blood thinner such as warfarin, whose INR is raised on purpose.

Hypersensitivity

An allergy, or another reaction of the immune system, to a substance. “Hypersensitivity to the study drug” means a known allergic reaction to it — not every side effect a medicine can have.

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 1 / Phase 2
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
60 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Group 1-Isunakinra treatment Group

    Study participants randomized to Group 1 treatment group will receive isunakinra at a dose of 25mg SC daily x 24 weeks in addition to standard pembrolizumab-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC/P).

    Drug: Group 1-Isunakinra

  • No intervention
    Group 2-Standard of care treatment group

    Study participants randomized to Group 2, the control group, will receive standard pembrolizumab-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC/P).

Interventions

  • DrugGroup 1-Isunakinra

    isunakinra at a dose of 25mg SC daily x 24 weeks in addition to standard pembrolizumab-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC/P).

This study also gives Pembrolizumab. No intervention listed here names it: that was found by reading the record.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Outcome-Study will test whether IL1 blockade can reduce TAM and sensitize human TNBCs to ICB. Outcome measure-changes in the TME induced by the addition of isunakinra to NAC/P will be determined.

    The following biomarkers will be evaluated, examining the changes in their expression level between baseline and after 8 weeks of NAC/P ± isunakinra: 1. TAMs 2. Lymphocyte subsets 3. Natural Killer cells 4. Polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells (PMN-MDSCs) 5. Inflammasome expression 6. Cytokines: IL-1β, IL-1α, IL-6, IL-8 and C-reactive protein (CRP)

    Time frame: 6 years

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

3 registry updates since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedDate before it movedWhere the date was before it movedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Started Oct 2026 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Aug 2034, 94 months after the start.

Of 118 phase 1/2 interventional studies under Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms, half reached primary completion within 56 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 43 and three quarters within 79. This study's planned 94 months is above that.

Start moved once since we started tracking on Sep 25, 2026: Aug 2026 → Oct 2026, on Sep 28, 2026.

Earlier changes are on the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Jun 24, 2026
First posted
Jul 13, 2026
StartActual
Oct 20, 2026was Aug 2026
Primary completionEst.
Aug 2034
CompletionEst.
Aug 2034
Last update
Oct 29, 2026
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
Status
Not yet recruiting→Recruiting
changed Oct 29, 2026
Sites
1 site added — first site in Canada
Show site
  • Princess Margaret Cancer Centre · Toronto, Canada
Oct 29, 2026
Start date
Aug 2026→Oct 2026
Sep 28, 2026
Contact
Study contact changed: M•••@uhn.ca · •••4432→M•••@uhn.ca · •••4432. See the current contact
Oct 29, 2026
Show all 3 updates
  1. Oct 29, 2026
    Not yet recruiting→Recruiting
    1 site added — first site in Canada
    Show site
    • Princess Margaret Cancer Centre · Toronto, Canada
    Contact Study contact changed: M•••@uhn.ca · •••4432→M•••@uhn.ca · •••4432. See the current contact
    + 1 other change: date precision
  2. Oct 22, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 3 other changes: verification date, description and arm descriptions
  3. Sep 28, 2026
    Start date Aug 2026→Oct 2026
    + 1 other change: verification date

From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT07698106
Collaborators
Buzzard Pharmaceuticals
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Jul 13, 2026
Start date
Oct 20, 2026
Primary completion
Aug 2034 (estimated)
Completion
Aug 2034 (estimated)
Last update
Oct 29, 2026

Study contacts

Dr. Michael Reedijk
Contact
Michael.Reedijk@uhn.ca
416-946-4432

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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