Clinical Trials Watch — 2026-05-25

TITLE: Clinical Trials Watch — Phase 2 Avelumab Bladder Trial Terminated; Early Oncology ADC Advances

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Editor's Note

A quiet week on the readout front — no Phase III data crossed the wire — but the docket includes one notable Phase 2 termination in bladder cancer, a Merck KGaA ADC dose-finding study in China, and a handful of behavioral and supportive-care trials initiating enrollment.

Phase III

No Phase III activity to report this cycle.

Phase II

• 🚩 TERMINATED: NCT03324282 — A Phase 2 first-line gemcitabine/cisplatin ± avelumab study in locally advanced/metastatic bladder carcinoma was halted after ANSM declined to validate ATU requests for avelumab in the indication, compounded by weak recruitment and investigator preference for avelumab maintenance over the chemo-immuno combo — effectively conceding the JAVELIN Bladder 100 maintenance paradigm.
• NCT07188779 — Rutgers opened recruitment (May 2026) for a Phase 2 trial of self-assembling peptide RADA16 in n=134 pediatric tonsillectomy patients, with postoperative pain as primary endpoint — a small but commercially relevant readout for hemostatic matrix vendors targeting ENT.

Phase I

• NCT06806046 — Merck KGaA's anti-CEACAM5 ADC precemtabart tocentecan (M9140) is now active-not-recruiting in a 12-patient Chinese bridging study in solid tumors/CRC, with DLTs as primary endpoint; data will inform regional dosing alignment with the parent global program.
• NCT02311374 — NIAAA marked its early-phase brain ADC sleep/wakefulness imaging study (n=40) complete; mechanistic rather than therapeutic, but feeds into the glymphatic-clearance literature relevant to neurodegeneration sponsors.

Phase NA / Observational

• NCT07602283 — Yale opened a 60-patient music-intervention trial in Alzheimer's/dementia patients, using quantitative sensory testing to phenotype pain — part of a growing pipeline of non-pharmacologic dementia symptom studies.
• NCT07602374 — UCSF will launch (June 2026) a 100-patient comparison of written vs. video patient education materials before postmastectomy reconstruction, with State-Trait Anxiety Inventory as the primary endpoint.
• NCT04502186 — University of Michigan completed its 70-patient systems-level intervention for rural adult depression, measuring change in self-reported depressive symptoms; publication will be worth watching for community-care sponsors.
• NCT06918860 — Costantino Errani (Rizzoli) continues to enroll a 600-patient observational study comparing intramedullary nailing vs. prosthetic reconstruction for proximal femur bone metastases, with implant survival as primary endpoint — a meaningfully sized real-world dataset for orthopedic oncology.
• NCT05440617 — NICHD's ovarian tissue cryopreservation biorepository (n=100) in patients undergoing gonadotoxic therapy continues recruiting, building infrastructure for future fertility-preservation studies.
• NCT06008990 — Indiana University completed a 45-patient maternal fMRI study in opioid use disorder, probing default-mode network connectivity alterations in women with prenatal OUD — relevant to neurobehavioral biomarker work in addiction.

Takeaways

The avelumab bladder combo termination is the only commercially material signal this week and reinforces that maintenance — not first-line concurrent — remains the accepted IO position in urothelial carcinoma. Merck KGaA's CEACAM5 ADC China bridging study is the trial to track for next-cycle pharmacology updates.