Hummingbird Bioscience could one day feather its nest with up to $290 million if its decision to license a phase 2-ready cancer drug to Percheron Therapeutics pays off.
In return for up to $290 million in upfront and potential milestone payments—Hummingbird didn’t offer a breakdown of the financial details—Percheron has received the license to HMBD-002, an anti-VISTA monoclonal antibody designed to inhibit tumor growth.
Hummingbird has already taken the monoclonal antibody through a phase 1 study in the U.S., which “showed the drug to be pharmacologically active and generally safe and well-tolerated,” according to the June 25 post-market release.
Percheron’s CEO James Garner said the Australian biotech selected HMBD-002 “out of more than a hundred individual drug candidates from more than 70 companies.”
“We very much hope that this exciting program can bring meaningful benefit to patients confronting the enormous challenge of a cancer diagnosis,” said Garner, who is looking to launch a phase 2 study next year.
Researchers have previously shown that VISTA, which stands for V-type immunoglobulin domain-containing suppressor of T-cell activation, is a checkpoint inhibitor present on naïve T cells, maintaining their dormancy and tolerance of self-antigens. HMBD-002 has been engineered to inhibit VISTA and neutralize its immunosuppressive activity while allowing VISTA-expressing cells to continue to function effectively in the immune system.
“Given the potential benefits of VISTA blockade in multiple cancers that have strong evidence of VISTA-mediated immune suppression, HMBD-002 is a scientifically compelling asset for both monotherapy and combination approaches,” Hummingbird CEO Piers Ingram, Ph.D., said in the release.
“We have confidence in the potential clinical benefit of HMBD-002 and in Percheron’s ability to successfully progress HMBD-002 through the clinic,” Ingram added.
Johnson & Johnson had been interested in VISTA at one point, teaming up with ImmuNext on an anti-VISTA antibody called JNJ-61610588 before returning the rights to the biotech for what it called “business reasons" after a phase 1 study saw one patient experience side effects related to cytokine release syndrome.
ImmuNext has since found a new partner in Curis, which took the drug into the clinic for solid tumor patients. Meanwhile, Sensei Biotherapeutics said a phase 1/2 readout of its own anti-VISTA antibody in 2023 showed the candidate had “potentially best-in-class pharmacokinetics and encouraging cytokine release profile across multiple dose cohorts.”