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Join us for our next webinar on Thursday June 6th!

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Registration is open!

In this webinar Dr. Jin Lu will show how Lonza’s novel GS Discovery® transient expression platform can boost transient titers by ~30-fold to enable rapid early material supply, and streamline the transition from discovery to stable production. Dr. Lu will also introduce bYlok® bispecific pairing technology – an innovative solution that drives correct heavy-light chain pairing rates in IgG-like bispecifics to >95%. This improves yields of the correct species and streamlines downstream processing, without affecting key performance attributes of the molecule. Dr. Lu will present the latest case studies of bYlok® engineered bispecifics and explore how bYlok® compares to other established pairing solutions.

FDA approves TALVEY™ (talquetamab-tgvs)

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On August 9, 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval of TALVEY™ (talquetamab-tgvs), a first-in-class bispecific antibody for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (r/r MM) who have received at least four prior lines of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor, an immunomodulatory agent, and an anti-CD38 antibody. This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on response rate and durability of response, and continued approval for this indication is contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in confirmatory trial(s).

TALVEY™ is approved as a weekly or biweekly subcutaneous (SC) injection after an initial step-up phase. The TALVEY™ prescribing information includes a Boxed Warning for cytokine release syndrome and neurologic toxicity. The drug is available only through a restricted program called the TECVAYLI® and TALVEY™ Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy

Talquetamab (JNJ-64407564) is a humanized, hinge-stabilized IgG4k/l T-cell engaging bispecific antibody with reduced effector function developed by Janssen. The antibody targets G protein-coupled receptor class C group 5 member D (GPRC5D), which is highly expressed in malignant plasma cells, and CD3 on T cells. TALVEY™ was granted Orphan Drug Designation for the treatment of MM by the U.S. FDA and the European Commission. The drug was also granted Breakthrough Therapy designation by the FDA for use in patients with r/r MM based on results of the MonumenTAL-1 study.

FDA’s approval was based on the single-arm, open-label, multicenter MonumenTAL-1 study (NCT03399799, NCT04634552), which evaluated the efficacy of TALVEY monotherapy in patients with r/r MM. Patients treated with the weekly dosing schedule received step-up doses of 0.01 mg/kg and 0.06 mg/kg of TALVEY followed by TALVEY 0.4 mg/kg subcutaneously weekly thereafter. Patients treated with the biweekly dosing schedule received step-up doses of 0.01 mg/kg, 0.06 mg/kg, and 0.3 mg/kg (0.75 times the recommended step-up dose 3) of TALVEY followed by TALVEY 0.8 mg/kg subcutaneously biweekly, thereafter. Patients on both dosing schedules were treated until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. According to the prescribing information, at the SC biweekly dose of 0.8 mg/kg, 73.6% of patients (95% Confidence Interval [CI], range, 63.0 to 82.4) achieved an overall response rate (ORR). With a median follow-up of nearly 6 (range, 0 to 9.5) months from first response among responders, 58% of patients achieved a very good partial response (VGPR) or better, including 33% of patients achieving a complete response (CR) or better. At the SC weekly dose of 0.4 mg/kg, 73.0% of patients (95% CI, range, 63.2 to 81.4) achieved an ORR. With a median follow-up of nearly 14 (range, 0.8 to 15.4) months from first response among responders, 57% of patients achieved a VGPR or better, including 35% of patients achieving a CR or better. Responses were durable with a median duration of response not reached in the 0.8 mg/kg SC biweekly dose group and 9.5 months in the 0.4 mg/kg SC weekly dose group. Among patients receiving the 0.8 mg/kg SC biweekly dose, an estimated 85% of responders maintained response for at least 9 months.

Talquetamab is being evaluated in a randomized Phase 3 study (MonumenTAL-1; NCT05455320) comparing the efficacy of talquetamab SC in combination with daratumumab SC or in combination with daratumumab and pomalidomide vs daratumumab SC in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone in patients with r/r MM. Initiated in October 2022, the study has an estimated enrollment of 810 and an estimated primary completion date in February 2026.

TECVAYLI® (teclistamab) approved in the European Union

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On August 24, 2022, The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson announced the first approval worldwide for TECVAYLI® (teclistamab) by the European Commission, which granted conditional marketing authorization (CMA) of TECVAYLI® as monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM). Patients must have received at least three prior therapies, including an immunomodulatory agent, a proteasome inhibitor, and an anti-CD38 antibody and have demonstrated disease progression on the last therapy.

Teclistamab (JNJ-64007957) is an IgG4l T-cell redirecting antibody derived from Ligand’s transgenic mouse (OmniAb) and Genmab’s DuoBody technology. The antibody selectively targets BCMA and CD3. Teclistamab was granted the European Medicines Agency’s PRIME designation for treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory MM who previously received ≥3 prior lines of therapy in 2021. Teclistamab had previously been granted Orphan Drug designations for MM in both the US and EU, and FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to teclistamab for the treatment of relapsed or refractory MM.

The CMA was supported by positive results from the multicohort, open-label Phase 1/2 MajesTEC-1 study (NCT03145181 and NCT04557098), evaluating the safety and efficacy of teclistamab in adults with RRMM (n =165). In the MajesTEC-1 study, treatment with teclistamab resulted in deep and durable responses. The median duration of progression-free survival and the median duration of overall survival were 11.3 months (95 percent CI; range, 8.8–17.1) and 18.3 months (95 percent CI; range, 15.1–not estimable), respectively.

Janssen submitted a biologics license application to the US Food and Drug Administration seeking approval of teclistamab for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma in December 2021.

Data for all approved antibody therapeutics can be found here.

Targeting two receptors can significantly increase cell specificity

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Antibody Engineering & Therapeutics, held in December 2021, offered many opportunities to hear exciting and informative presentations by experts in the field. We are pleased to present here a summary of a lecture given in the “Immune Cell Recruitment and Redirection” session by Dr. Jonathan Davis. The summary was kindly written by Dr. Czeslaw Radziejewski.

 


Targeting two receptors can significantly increase cell specificity.
Jonathan Davis, Vice President of Innovation and Strategy, Invenra, Inc.

Jonathan Davis presented a talk detailing Invenra’s rationale for generating bispecific antibodies that target two receptors at the same cell and provided some examples of their biological activity. The platform is based on the construct in which CH1/CL domain in one arm is substituted with a domain derived from CH3. This approach produces stable constructs that are easy to purify. The presentation focused on bispecifics referred to as SNIPERs. The idea behind bispecific SNIPERs is to combine two binding arms, both of which having low affinity toward their cellular targets. When both targets are engaged with cognate targets on the cell surface, the avidity effect results in much stronger binding. This approach could potentially address undesirable binding of monospecific antibodies to healthy tissues where tumor antigen is also expressed at lower levels.

Dr. Davis discussed the concept of symmetric synergy and asymmetric synergy. In the case of symmetric synergy both targets are present at about the same density, whereas in asymmetric synergy one target is present in much greater abundance than the other. According to the speaker, for the symmetric synergy to occur the two target molecules have to be in a right orientation, so the epitopes have to be properly oriented in respect to each other, at least most of the time. This necessitates screening large number of antibodies in order to build a bispecific that demonstrates good synergy. With good geometry fit, 100- to 1000-fold increases in affinity can be reached on cells. He cited the IL-2 receptor system as an example of asymmetric synergy found in nature. High affinity IL-2 receptor is a three-part system consisting of alpha, beta, and gamma subunits. The alpha subunit is present in high concentration, but binds IL-2 with low affinity. The alpha subunit with bound IL-2 binds to beta and then to gamma subunits to form a high affinity signaling complex. This process goes in one direction: from alpha to beta and gamma and that is why it is considered asymmetric. Dr. Davis emphasized that Invenra has the ability to generate and screen large number of constructs to select the right candidate for further development.

Invenra is exploring the SNIPER approach for Treg depletion and for the agonism of co-stimulatory receptor for T cells, OX40. In this lecture, Dr. Davis discussed the anti-tumor activity of SNIPER INV721 in neuroblastoma. The marketed antibody therapeutic, dinutuximab, targets disialoganglioside GD2 that is densely expressed on neuroblastoma cells. GD2 is also expressed on melanomas, small cell lung cancers and sarcomas. Dinutuximab causes lysis of GD2-expressing cells and its mechanism of action involves ADCC and CDC. The antibody is very effective, but causes excruciating pain in patients, presumably because the ganglioside is expressed in all tissues, albeit at the much lower levels. As a second target of INV721, Invenra selected the check-point molecule B7H3 (CD276) that is present only on the tumor cells. To reduce affinity for ganglioside GD2, some residues in the existing antibody against the target were mutated, which allowed the generation of SNIPER( INV721) that bound to neuroblastoma cells only if two targets were present, but not either one alone. To test the in vivo binding affinity of the bispecific antibody, INV721 was radiolabeled with 89Zr. Mice bearing GD2/B7H3-expressing tumors were intravenously injected with 89Zr-labeled INV721 and its in vivo biodistribution was monitored via positron emission tomography imaging. 89Zr-INV721- showed elevated accumulation in the tumor with minimal uptake in normal tissues. 89Zr-radiolabeled isotype control antibody displayed significantly lower tumor uptake demonstrating the specificity of INV721. (1) Dr. Davis indicated that one potential extension of the Invenra bispecific antibodies approach would be to convert these molecules into T-cell engagers.

1. Erbe AK et al. Specific Targeting of Tumors Through Bispecific SNIPER Antibodies. J Immunol, May 1, 2020, 204 (1 Supplement) 91.2.

Join us on April 7th for our next webinar, Precision Execution of Bispecifics at Scale from Design to Delivery!

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Thursday April 7, 2022 11am ET / 5pm CET
Speaker: Dr. Lisa Prendergast, Associate Director of Expression System Sciences in Licensing at Lonza

Registration for our next webinar, “Precision Execution of Bispecifics at Scale from Design to Delivery“, is now open!

Novel therapeutic modalities such as bispecific antibodies are increasingly being explored as more effective alternatives to monoclonal antibodies for a range of diseases. Therapeutics such as bispecifics, can have a combinatorial effect by targeting two antigens,  resulting in treatments with enhanced utility, higher efficacy, fewer side effects and less resistance compared to mAbs.

Generating a bispecific antibody, which is correctly and stably paired, is a major production concern. Many solutions require significant changes to native antibody structure, which increases antibody complexity and forces adaptation of downstream processes. While a various platforms have been developed to mitigate Heavy-Light chain (HC-LC) mispairing, there are many other rate limiting steps for efficiently expressing these molecules in a CHO system. bYlok® technology is a design engineering approach that stabilise the interaction between the HC and LC, essentially removing the mispairing problem whilst retaining a more natural antibody structure.

This presentation will introduce you to a mechanistic review of the bispecific pipeline to demonstrate how a various tools and technologies can enable you execute bispecifics.  Case studies will be presented to show how the bYlok® technology can be used to stabilise and select for novel bispecifics from a panel of parental immunotherapeutic mAbs. Our data demonstrates that correct heterodimerisation can be achieved consistently and how standard downstream purification processes can be used during production.

Register here!