Molecular Partners Reveals Programs in Immuno-Oncology Montag, 07. März 2016 - 07:00

Zurich-Schlieren, March 07, 2016. Molecular Partners AG (ticker: MOLN), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is developing a powerful new class of therapies known as DARPins, today announced additional details about its immuno-oncology pipeline, including two early-stage multi-DARPin programs. The first program targets the validated immune checkpoint PD-1 as well as VEGF-A, aiming to enhance PD-1 efficacy. The second program is designed to potently activate T-cells in the tumor without activating circulating T-cells, thus circumventing systemic toxicities.

Christian Zahnd, Chief Executive Officer of Molecular Partners, will present additional details about these discovery programs at the 36^th Annual Cowen Health Care Conference in Boston, Mass. on Wed., March 9 at 10:40 a.m. Eastern Time.

"The DARPin platform is ideally suited to develop highly differentiated immuno-oncology therapies with the potential to overcome the limitations of first-generation approaches,” said Dr. Michael Stumpp, Chief Scientific Officer at Molecular Partners. “We are excited to contribute to the rapidly evolving field of immuno-oncology as we build our proprietary oncology pipeline. Our early-stage programs evaluate exciting new principles that were previously out of reach: enhanced immune checkpoint blockers and locally activated agonists.”

Immuno-oncology is a revolutionary approach to anti-cancer treatment that redirects the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells. Investigators are studying many different ways to modulate immune checkpoints used by the body to regulate the immune system. While many of these clinical studies are yielding promising results, novel approaches are needed.

Enhancing the activity of validated checkpoint antagonists

The first proprietary product in Molecular Partners’ immuno-oncology pipeline is a multi-DARPin that blocks the checkpoint target PD-1, inhibits VEGF-A and binds to human serum albumin. This tri-functional DARPin aims to normalize the tumor vasculature by inhibiting VEGF, consequently allowing for more efficient inhibition of PD-1 and more tumor-infiltrating T-cells (TIL). In addition, the DARPin domain binding to serum albumin should result in a long half-life and allow for potentially increased tumor penetration.

Local Activation in Immuno-Oncology

Molecular Partners is also developing multi-DARPins that bind to co-stimulatory activators (agonists) on the surface of T-cells without activating them when bound in circulation. While one DARPin binds to an agonistic target, another DARPin binds to a densely expressed target in the tumor stroma leading to clustering of agonists and potential activation. Co-stimulatory activators of T-cells are attractive but very difficult targets in the field of immuno-oncology. Current antibody-based approaches are often limited by severe side effects as they tend to cluster throughout the body thereby activating T-cells systemically. This approach aims at activating T-cells only in the tumor microenvironment when the multi-DARPin clusters the agonist via the stroma.