A Phase 2 interventional study of Ficerafusp alfa and Pembrolizumab (KEYTRUDA®) in Metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Recurrent Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma, sponsored by Bicara Therapeutics. Recruiting at 7 sites in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-10-13.
Sponsored by Bicara Therapeutics · Phase 2, Interventional, and Treatment
Ficerafusp alfa is directed against two targets, Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) and Transforming Growth Factor beta (TGF-β).
The study aims to demonstrate that the antitumor activity of an alternative dosing regimen of ficerafusp alfa in combination with pembrolizumab is comparable to the weekly ficerafusp alfa regimen in 1L PD-L1-positive, recurrent or metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC).
The mechanism of action of ficerafusp alfa involves dual targeting of two cancer targets, EGFR and TGF-β, which are known to drive solid tumor growth and metastasis.
All participants will receive ficerafusp alfa 1500 mg once weekly (QW in combination with pembrolizumab 200 mg every three weeks (Q3W) for 12 weeks (loading phase). Participants who remain on study without progression at the end of the loading phase will enter the maintenance phase and will be randomized 2:1 to one of the following arms:
Arm A: Ficerafusp alfa 2250 mg Q3W [alternative dose] + pembrolizumab 200 mg Q3W Arm B: Ficerafusp alfa 1500 mg QW [standard dose] + pembrolizumab 200 mg Q3W.
2,018 studies on the registry are indexed under Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Head and Neck; 573 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 160 is above the median of 48 across 1,653 interventional studies indexed under Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Head and Neck.
Browse Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Head and Neck studies →Bicara Therapeutics is the lead sponsor of 3 studies on the registry; 3 are open to participants now.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
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.
Exclusion Criteria:
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.
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.
The diagnosis was confirmed by looking at a sample under a microscope: tissue from a biopsy or surgery (histology), or cells from a fluid or needle sample (cytology).
Your pathology report is the document that shows this.
Neoadjuvant treatment is given before the main treatment (usually surgery), often to shrink a tumour. Adjuvant treatment is given after it, to lower the chance of the cancer coming back.
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.
PD-1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4 are proteins that act as brakes on the immune system. Checkpoint inhibitors, such as pembrolizumab or nivolumab, block them so the immune system can attack a cancer.
PD-L1 can also be measured in a tumour sample. Some scores count stained tumour cells only (TPS); others also count certain immune cells (CPS). The study names the score and the minimum it uses.
The amount of disease can be tracked with a defined measurement, so the study can see whether it shrinks or grows. It might be a tumour measured on a scan or, in some blood cancers such as myeloma, a marker measured in blood or urine.
The criteria or the study team say which measurement counts — having no tumour visible on a scan does not by itself rule you out.
The standard rules for measuring tumours on CT or MRI scans, to tell whether a cancer is shrinking, stable or growing during treatment.
“Measurable disease per RECIST 1.1” usually means at least one tumour 10 mm or more at its longest on a CT scan, or a lymph node 15 mm or more across its short axis.
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.
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.
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.
The study doctor’s estimate of how long someone is likely to live. Criteria use it so that people can stay in the study long enough for it to answer its question.
Cancer that has spread from where it began to other parts of the body. “Metastatic” cancer is cancer that has spread this way.
Cancer that has spread to the leptomeninges, the thin layers covering the brain and spinal cord, and the fluid between them. It is not the same as brain metastases.
Criteria often treat it separately, and many studies leave it out even where treated brain metastases are allowed.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Stem cell (bone marrow) transplants. Allogeneic uses cells from a donor; autologous uses your own cells, collected earlier and given back.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Histologically or cytologically confirmed
The diagnosis was confirmed by looking at a sample under a microscope: tissue from a biopsy or surgery (histology), or cells from a fluid or needle sample (cytology).
Your pathology report is the document that shows this.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Adjuvant and neoadjuvant
Neoadjuvant treatment is given before the main treatment (usually surgery), often to shrink a tumour. Adjuvant treatment is given after it, to lower the chance of the cancer coming back.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
PD-1, PD-L1 and checkpoint inhibitors
PD-1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4 are proteins that act as brakes on the immune system. Checkpoint inhibitors, such as pembrolizumab or nivolumab, block them so the immune system can attack a cancer.
PD-L1 can also be measured in a tumour sample. Some scores count stained tumour cells only (TPS); others also count certain immune cells (CPS). The study names the score and the minimum it uses.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Measurable disease
The amount of disease can be tracked with a defined measurement, so the study can see whether it shrinks or grows. It might be a tumour measured on a scan or, in some blood cancers such as myeloma, a marker measured in blood or urine.
The criteria or the study team say which measurement counts — having no tumour visible on a scan does not by itself rule you out.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
RECIST
The standard rules for measuring tumours on CT or MRI scans, to tell whether a cancer is shrinking, stable or growing during treatment.
“Measurable disease per RECIST 1.1” usually means at least one tumour 10 mm or more at its longest on a CT scan, or a lymph node 15 mm or more across its short axis.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Life expectancy
The study doctor’s estimate of how long someone is likely to live. Criteria use it so that people can stay in the study long enough for it to answer its question.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Metastases
Cancer that has spread from where it began to other parts of the body. “Metastatic” cancer is cancer that has spread this way.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Leptomeningeal disease
Cancer that has spread to the leptomeninges, the thin layers covering the brain and spinal cord, and the fluid between them. It is not the same as brain metastases.
Criteria often treat it separately, and many studies leave it out even where treated brain metastases are allowed.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Allogeneic and autologous transplant
Stem cell (bone marrow) transplants. Allogeneic uses cells from a donor; autologous uses your own cells, collected earlier and given back.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
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.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Loading phase (12 weeks): Ficerafusp alfa 1500 mg QW (standard dose) + pembrolizumab 200 mg Q3W. Maintenance phase: Ficerafusp alfa 2250 mg Q3W (alternative dose) + pembrolizumab 200 mg Q3W.
Drug: Ficerafusp alfa · Drug: Pembrolizumab (KEYTRUDA®)
Continuous ficerafusp alfa 1500 mg QW (standard dose) + pembrolizumab 200 mg Q3W.
Drug: Ficerafusp alfa · Drug: Pembrolizumab (KEYTRUDA®)
investigational agent
immunotherapy agent used in combination with investigational agent
Proportion of participants in maintenance phase who are progression-free as assessed by blinded independent central review (BICR) per RECIST 1.1 and alive.
Time frame: Approximately 9 months.
Serum exposure of ficerafusp alfa.
Pre- and post-infusion serum concentrations and area under the curve (AUC) for ficerafusp alfa.
Time frame: Approximately 9 months.
Objective response rate (ORR) per RECIST 1.1 by blinded independent central review (BICR).
ORR is defined as the proportion of subjects who have a confirmed CR or PR per RECIST 1.1. by BICR.
Time frame: Approximately 1 year.
Disease control rate (DCR) per RECIST 1.1 by blinded independent central review (BICR)
DCR is defined as the proportion of subjects who have a SD, CR or PR per RECIST 1.1. by BICR
Time frame: Approximately 1 year.
Clinical Benefit Rate (CBR) per RECIST 1.1 by blinded independent central review (BICR)
CBR is defined as the proportion of subjects who demonstrated CR + PR + SD\>6 months per RECIST 1.1 by BICR.
Time frame: Approximately 3 years.
Duration of Response (DOR) per RECIST 1.1 by blinded independent central review (BICR).
For subjects who demonstrated CR or PR, DOR is defined as the time from first documented evidence of CR or PR until disease progression or death, whichever occurs first per RECIST 1.1 by BICR.
Time frame: Approximately 3 years.
Progression-free survival (PFS) per RECIST 1.1 by blinded independent central review (BICR).
Defined as the time from Cycle 1 Day 1\[TK16.1\] to the first documented PD per RECIST 1.1 as determined by BICR or death due to any cause, whichever occurs first.
Time frame: Approximately 3 years.
Overall Survival (OS)
Defined as the time from the Cycle 1 Day 1 to death due to any cause.
Time frame: Approximately 3 years.
Time to Response (TTR) per RECIST 1.1 by blinded independent central review (BICR)
For subjects who demonstrated CR or PR, TTR is defined as the time from Cycle 1 Day 1 to first documented evidence of CR or PR per RECIST 1.1 by BICR.
Time frame: Approximately 3 years.
Deep Response Rate by blinded independent central review (BICR)
Defined as the proportion of responders who achieve a deep response.
Time frame: Approximately 3 years.
Time to maximum tumor shrinkage
Time to maximum tumor shrinkage is defined as the time from Cycle 1 Day 1 to the maximum reduction in target lesion diameter by BICR.
Time frame: Approximately 3 years.
Incidence of ≥Grade 3 TEAEs
Time frame: Up to 30 days post end of treatment.
Incidence of Serious adverse events (SAEs)
Time frame: Up to 90 days post end of treatment.
Incidence of Adverse events (AEs) leading to dose modifications (dose reduction, interruption, dose held, or discontinuation)
Time frame: Up to 90 days post end of treatment.
Plan to share: Undecided
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
Start is estimated for Sep 2026; primary completion for Mar 2028, 18 months later.
Of 68 industry-sponsored phase 2 interventional studies under Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Head and Neck, half reached primary completion within 43 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 30 and three quarters within 60. This study's planned 18 months is below that.
Counting every sponsor, half of 366 studies reached it within 53 months; a quarter within 35 and three quarters within 82.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
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 ↗
Eligibility is decided by the study team. Share this record with your doctor or contact the team directly.
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Studies of the drug tested here: Ficerafusp alfa
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