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US approval for mogamulizumab

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On August 8, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Poteligeo (mogamulizumab-kpkc) for intravenous use for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory mycosis fungoides (MF) or Sézary syndrome (SS) after at least one prior systemic therapy. The diseases are subtypes of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), which is a rare and difficult-to-treat type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The FDA had previously granted mogamulizumab Breakthrough Therapy and Orphan Drug designations, and the biologics license application for mogamulizumab received a priority review.

FDA’s approval was based on an open-label, multi-center, randomized Phase 3 clinical trial (NCT01728805) of 372 patients with relapsed MF or SS who received either mogamulizumab or vorinostat. Study sites were located in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia. Median progression-free survival was 7.6 months for patients administered mogamulizumab compared to 3.1 month for patients taking vorinostat in this clinical trial.

Developed by Kyowa Kirin, mogamulizumab is a humanized glyco-engineered monoclonal antibody that binds to CC chemokine receptor type 4 on cancer cells. Mogamulizumab was produced using Kyowa Hakko Kirin’s proprietary POTELLIGENT® platform, which produces antibodies with low / no fucose content. Such antibodies have increased affinity to FcγRIIIa (CD16), and enhanced antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity activity. Mogamulizumab’s first approval, in 2012, was granted by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory CCR4-positive adult T-cell leukemia-lymphoma.

The Antibody Society maintains a comprehensive table of approved monoclonal antibody therapeutics and those in regulatory review in the EU or US. As of Aug 8, a total of 5 antibody therapeutics had been granted first approvals in either the US or EU in 2018, and marketing applications for another 11 that have not yet been approved in either the EU or US are undergoing review in these regions. Please log in to access the table in either PDF or Excel formats, located in the Members Only section.

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Most read from mAbs

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The Antibody Society is pleased and proud to be affiliated with mAbs, a multi-disciplinary journal dedicated to advancing the art and science of antibody research and development. We hope you enjoy these brief summaries based on the abstracts of the most read papers published in recent issues. All the articles are open access; PDFs can be downloaded by following the links below.

Issue 10.5 (July 2018)

The “less-is-more” in therapeutic antibodies: Afucosylated anti-cancer antibodies with enhanced antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity. In this new review, Pereira et al. discuss the relevance of antibody core fucosylation to antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity, and different strategies to produce afucosylated antibodies, and provide an update of afucosylated antibody drugs currently undergoing clinical trials, as well as those that have been approved.

A long non-coding SINEUP RNA boosts semi-stable production of fully human monoclonal antibodies in HEK293E cells. Sasso et al. report the results of their study of SINEUP technology applied to semi-stable production of monoclonal antibodies in HEK293E cells. SINEUP RNAs are long non-coding transcripts, possessing the ability to enhance translation of selected mRNAs. The authors propose SINEUP technology as a valuable tool to enhance semi-stable antibody production in human cell lines.

Prediction of non-linear pharmacokinetics in humans of an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) when evaluation of higher doses in animals is limited by tolerability: Case study with an anti-CD33 ADC. Figueroa et al. present a practical approach that uses limited pharmacokinetic (PK) and receptor occupancy (RO) data of the corresponding unconjugated antibody to predict ADC PK when conjugation does not alter the non-specific clearance or the antibody-target interaction. Their findings showed that, for a cytotoxic ADC with non-linear PK and limited preclinical PK data, incorporating RO in the PK model and using data from the corresponding unconjugated antibody at higher doses allowed the identification of parameters to characterize monkey PK and enabled human PK predictions.

Linear pharmacokinetic parameters for monoclonal antibodies are similar within a species and across different pharmacological targets: A comparison between human, cynomolgus monkey and hFcRn Tg32 transgenic mouse using a population-modeling approach. In this report, Betts et al. used population-pharmacokinetic (popPK) modeling to determine a single set of ‘typical’ popPK parameters describing the linear PK of mAbs in human, cynomolgus monkey and transgenic mice expressing the human neonatal Fc receptor (hFcRn Tg32), using a rich dataset of 27 mAbs. Translational strategies were investigated for prediction of human linear PK of mAbs, including use of typical human popPK parameters and allometric exponents from cynomolgus monkey and Tg32 mouse. Each method gave good prediction of human PK with parameters predicted within 2-fold. These strategies offer alternative options to the use of cynomolgus monkeys for human PK predictions of linear mAbs, based on in silico methods (typical human popPK parameters) or using a rodent species (Tg32 mouse), and call into question the value of completing extensive in vivo preclinical PK to inform linear mAb PK.

Issue 10.4 (May/June 2018)

When monoclonal antibodies are not monospecific: Hybridomas frequently express additional functional variable regions. Bradbury et al. discuss results of their study, which analyzed 185 random hybridomas, in a large multicenter dataset, to determine the genetic diversity in antibody heavy chain and light chain genes found within individual hybridomas. Of the hybridomas evaluated, 126 (68.1%) contained no additional productive chains, while the remaining 59 (31.9%) contained one or more additional productive heavy or light chains. The expression of additional chains degraded properties of the antibodies, including specificity, binding signal and/or signal-to-noise ratio, as determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunohistochemistry. Their findings, reflecting the current state of hybridomas used in research, reiterate the importance of using sequence-defined recombinant antibodies for research or diagnostic use.

Evaluation of analytical similarity between trastuzumab biosimilar CT-P6 and reference product using statistical analyses. In this report, Lee et al. evaluated analytical similarity of CT-P6, a biosimilar product of trastuzumab, with the reference products (EU-Herceptin® or US-Herceptin®) following risk-based statistical approaches recommended in a recent US Food and Drug Administration guideline for the risk-based statistical approaches recommended by the US Food and Drug Administration. Various quality attributes of trastuzumab were first ranked based on the clinical impact of each attribute and subsequently adjusted to one of three tiers (Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3) considering the characteristics of the assay, the level of attribute present and the feasibility of statistical analysis. Analytical similarity assessment analyzed by the three tiers clearly demonstrated that CT-P6 exhibits highly similar structural and physicochemical properties, as well as functional activities, compared with the reference products.

Analytical and functional similarity of Amgen biosimilar ABP 215 to bevacizumab. Seo et al. report the results of their analytical similarity assessment, which was designed to assess the structural and functional similarity of ABP 215 and bevacizumab sourced from both the United States (US) and the European Union (EU). Similarity assessment was also made between the US- and EU-sourced bevacizumab to assess the similarity between the two products. More than 20 batches of bevacizumab (US) and bevacizumab (EU), and 13 batches of ABP 215 representing unique drug substance lots were assessed for similarity. The large dataset allows meaningful comparisons and garners confidence in the overall conclusion for the analytical similarity assessment of ABP 215 to both US- and EU-sourced bevacizumab. The structural and purity attributes, and biological properties of ABP 215 are demonstrated to be highly similar to those of bevacizumab.

 

Like this post but not a member? We encourage you to join the Society to take advantage of the substantial benefits of membership, including discounts on fees for selected KNect365, CHI, and Hanson Wade meetings, discounted subscriptions to Society-affiliated journals PEDS and mAbs (special subscription rate of US $84 online only access for Antibody Society members)  and access to information in the Members Only section of the website. In particular, we encourage members to take advantage of the discount on registration for Antibody Engineering & Therapeutics, which is the annual meeting of The Antibody Society traditionally held in San Diego in December. Membership is free for students, post-docs and employees of our corporate sponsors!

Sanne van de Bovenkamp wins The Antibody Society’s first Award for Excellence!

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Stimulating scientific exchange and education represent important aims of The Antibody Society. The Society therefore supports conferences in the antibody field through financial means and by providing scientific programming advice. The recognition of young and upcoming scientists with an Award for Excellence for best abstracts and presentations is a new Society initiative.

The Society’s first Award for Excellence was presented at the Waddensymposium, Antibodies: Central Players in Therapy and Disease, which was held June 25-26, 2018 in the remote town of Ouddorp in The Netherlands. An independent jury consisting of Prof. Stephen Beers (University of Southampton) and Dr. René Pfeiffle (University of Erlangen) selected Sanne van de Bovenkamp as the overall winner. The jury indicated that they were not only highly impressed by the quality of Sanne’s presentation but also by her demonstrated ability to engage in an insightful scientific discussion.

In her presentation, Sanne described her recent work on the impact of Fab-domain glycosylation in the adaptive antibody response. Her studies demonstrate that Fab-domain glycosylation is subject to clonal selection and impacts on antibody affinity. Sanne performed her graduate work at Sanquin Research with Dr. Theo Rispens.  She is currently a postdoc at the department of Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion at the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden with Prof. Leendert Trouw. She is pictured here with Society Board of Director’s member Dr. Paul W.H.I. Parren and Prof. Beers.

The Adaptive Immune Receptor Repertoire Community is now part of The Antibody Society!

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We are pleased and proud to announce the incorporation of the Adaptive Immune Receptor Repertoire (AIRR) Community into the Society.

The AIRR Community is a research-driven group that is organizing and coordinating stakeholders in the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies to study antibody (Ab)/B-cell and T-cell receptor (TcR) repertoires. Recent advances in sequencing technology have made it possible to sample the immune repertoire in exquisite detail. AIRR sequencing has enormous promise for understanding the dynamics of the immune repertoire in vaccinology, infectious disease, autoimmunity, and cancer biology, but also poses substantial challenges. The AIRR Community was established to meet these challenges. The AIRR Community and its associated meetings and workshops are designed to develop standards and recommendations for: 1) obtaining, analyzing, curating and comparing/sharing NGS AIRR datasets; 2) using and validating tools for analyzing AIRR data; 3) relating AIRR NGS datasets to other “big data” sets, such as microarray, flow cytometric, and MiSeq gene-expression data; and 4) legal and ethical issues involving the use and sharing of AIRR data sets derived from human sources. The proceedings of the workshops, including the recommendations and action plans, will be published to benefit the larger scientific community.

To learn more about the AIRR Community and its work, please explore the items listed under the ‘AIRR Community’ tab above.

First approval for erenumab

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On May 17, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved erenumab-aooe (Aimovig) for the preventive treatment of migraine in adults. Erenumab is a human monoclonal antibody that targets calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor, thereby blocking the activity of CGRP, which is involved in migraine attacks. The treatment is given by once-monthly subcutaneous injections.

The approval was based on data from three clinical trials that compared erenuman-aooe to placebo. Over 2000 participants were included in the studies. In the first study (STRIVE, NCT02456740), which included 955 participants with a history of episodic migraine, patients administered erenumab-aooe experienced, on average, one to two fewer monthly migraine days than those on placebo over a 6 month period. In the second study (ARISE, NCT02483585), which included 577 patients with a history of episodic migraine, patients administered erenumab-aooe experienced, on average, one fewer migraine day per month than those on placebo over a 3 month period. The third study, which evaluated 667 patients with a history of chronic migraine, patients treated with erenumab-aooe experienced, on average, 2.5 fewer monthly migraine days than those receiving placebo over a three month period.

The Antibody Society maintains a comprehensive table of approved monoclonal antibody therapeutics and those in regulatory review in the EU or US. As of May 17, a total of 4 antibody therapeutics had been granted first approvals in either the US or EU in 2018, and marketing applications for another 10 that have not yet been approved in either the EU or US are undergoing review in these regions. Please log in to access the table, located in the Members Only section.

Like this post but not a member? Please join! Membership is free for students and employees of the Society’s corporate sponsors.