Faron’s R&D Day 2026: From the bench to a randomized trial and beyond
This article summarises remarks made by Chairman Tuomo Pätsi and CEO Juho Jalkanen MD, PhD at Faron’s R&D Day webcast on 8 October 2026.
Cancer patients have more treatment options than ever. Checkpoint inhibitors, targeted therapies and new combinations have improved the outlook for many of them. Yet cancer still kills, and treatment resistance is often the reason.
At Faron’s R&D Day, CEO Juho Jalkanen pointed to one cell type behind that resistance: the macrophage. In a tumor that does not respond to treatment, macrophages can make up a large share of the mass, and many of them suppress the immune response that therapies try to trigger.
From receptor to antibody
Clever-1 is a scavenger receptor on immunosuppressive macrophages, first identified at the University of Turku by Faron’s founders and studied there for more than 20 years. Faron has worked on it as a drug target since the company was founded in 2007. Jalkanen called this old-fashioned science: understanding a new piece of biology before trying to drug it. AI can design and characterize molecules, he said, but it does not hand a company a new target.
Bexmarilimab is Faron’s investigational anti-Clever-1 antibody, the first in its class. It is designed to switch macrophages from suppressing the immune system to supporting an anti-tumor response.
CEO
Faron Pharmaceuticals
Why higher-risk MDS comes first
Chairman Tuomo Pätsi, who has held executive roles at Amgen, Celgene and Seagen, noted that the treatment of higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (HR-MDS) has seen little progress. The last real advance was the hypomethylating agents such as azacitidine, which Pätsi helped launch internationally at Celgene some 17 to 18 years ago.
Both Pätsi and Jalkanen gave the same three reasons for putting HR-MDS first: Clever-1 is highly expressed by malignant blasts in MDS, bexmarilimab plus azacitidine has already produced strong early clinical data in the BEXMAB Phase 1/2 trial, and the recent failures by other azacitidine combinations have shown which trial designs to avoid.
Chairman of the Board
Faron Pharmaceuticals
The next step is BEXERA, a randomized, double-blind Phase 2b trial in treatment-naïve HR-MDS that compares bexmarilimab plus azacitidine with placebo plus azacitidine. This placebo-controlled design is intended to give a clear read on what the combination adds to azacitidine alone.
Solid tumor
Bexmarilimab is also being tested in investigator-initiated trials (IITs) run by independent investigators in solid tumors where Clever-1 positive macrophages are common. IITs are under way in soft-tissue sarcoma, and in metastatic melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer that have become resistant to PD-1 inhibitors.
Jalkanen said the aim is to make bexmarilimab the cornerstone of cancer care in cancers where Clever-1 positive macrophages drive resistance and progression. Based on biobank screening, he estimated that, if the program succeeds, this could help roughly 20 to 30 per cent of patients with treatment-resistant cancer.
Focus first
For a company of Faron’s size, Jalkanen said, everything starts with focus. Most resources go to HR-MDS, where the need is largest and the evidence strongest. Solid tumor work runs mainly through investigator-initiated trials, and Faron currently receives more proposals for such trials than it can support.
Jalkanen said data from four, possibly five, new indications are expected during 2027. Faron expects its existing cash resources to fund planned operations into Q4 2027, (covering the period in which BEXERA is due to read out.)
This article is part of a series based on Faron’s R&D Day 2026. Bexmarilimab is an investigational product and has not been approved by any regulatory authority. The article contains forward-looking statements.