Antibody Screening Solutions Made Easy - 22

Antibody Screening Solutions Made Easy * To Root Out Cancer Immunotherapies Dig Deeper

first-generation immunotherapies. Also, speakers
described how they are developing new tools to
advance immunotherapy design and discovery.

survival of the remnants of cancer cells, as well as
for maintaining the immune suppression environment," stated John Dulos, Ph.D., director of Aduro
Biotech Europe.

Treating the Incurable
The effectiveness of current immunotherapy
treatments varies between patients and between
cancers. For example, some patients with multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer remain
incurable. Patients relapse or their cancers become resistant even to the latest treatments.

Aduro plans to begin a Phase I trial of BION-1301,
a humanized antibody. BION-1301 is designed to
prevent APRIL from binding to two receptors,
B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) and
transmembrane activator and calcium modulator
(TACI), which are expressed on the surface of
multiple myeloma cells (Figure 1).

To develop a new approach against multiple
myeloma, scientists at Aduro Biotech Europe
recently collaborated with Kenneth C. Anderson,
M.D, director of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma
Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper Myeloma Center
at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The research team
conducted a preclinical study to determine how
APRIL (a proliferation-inducing ligand) promotes
the growth and survival of multiple myeloma cells.

According to Dr. Dulos, other clinical approaches
focus only on BCMA. He explained that Aduro is
taking the unique approach of focusing on APRIL
to specifically targetremnant tumor cells in the
bone marrow and break down the [tumor's]
protective environment. "We hope," he said, "that
this approach will be a benefit to patients and
prevent the relapses we've seen up to now."

"What we uncovered with Ken Anderson is that
APRIL is a crucial protective factor. In the bone
marrow, it is responsible for the proliferation and

Dr. Dulos also presented new pharmacokinetic
and pharmacodynamics data collected from
nonhuman primates. "We are pretty excited

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about these findings," he remarked. "They
replicate some aspects we've seen in mouse
models and really show that our compound is
pharmacologically active. We are very
comfortable advancing it into the clinic."

A Second Generation
New treatments hope to overcome difficulties
in combatting the powerful immunosuppressive
effects of tumors. Immunosuppressive effects can
limit the ability of checkpoint inhibitor therapies
to "activate" lymphocytes. Such effects can
prevent checkpoint inhibitors from boosting the
effectiveness of T cells against cancer.
iTeos Therapeutics is developing an
immunotherapy treatment designed to
simultaneously activate T cells to attack a tumor
while destroying the regulatory T (Treg) cells that
protect cancer cells from T-cell attack. "By
using one antagonist antibody that targets
several pathways, we increase the activation of
T cells and at the same time deplete immunosuppressive Treg cells," said Gregory Driessens, Ph.D.,
project leader at iTeos.

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Antibody Screening Solutions Made Easy

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