BackgroundTherapeutically targeting tumor myeloid cells has emerged as a novel and complementary strategy to existing cancer immunotherapy approaches. The interaction of tumor expressed CD47 with SIRP alpha (signal regulatory protein-alphaa, SIRPA) on macrophages, dendritic cells and neutrophils inhibits key immune effector mechanisms. Targeting SIRPa-CD47 represents a novel approach to enhance anti-tumor immunity by augmenting or reactivating critical tumor clearance mechanisms.H5F9, an antibody against CD47, has shown promising therapeutic activities in patients with MSD, AML and NHL. However, agents targeting CD47 present hematological toxicities and present a huge antigen sink leading to not achieving an optimum therapeutic window. Our approach is to target SIRP alpha, the receptor of CD47 and focus therapeutic targeting to relevant mechanisms related to phagocytosis and myeloid cell activation and at the same time avoid undesired effects of blocking CD47. SIRP gamma, a very close relative of SIRP alpha is expressed on T cells and also binds to CD47. It has been shown that blockade of SIRP gamma-CD47 interaction inhibits T cell proliferation and blocks trans-endothelial T cell migration. Hence, our aim is to generate SIRP alpha selective antibodies that do not cross-react with SIRP gamma and have minimal impact on T cell functions.MethodsUsing Apexigen’s APXiMAB™ proprietary antibody discovery platform, we have generated two novel anti-SIRP alpha antibodies (APX701 & APX702) with differentiated properties as compared to other approaches targeting the CD47/SIRP alpha axis. We have used ELISA, FACS based cell binding and blocking assays, and functional assays including in vitro phagocytosis and antibody-dependent cell phagocytosis (ADCP) in combination with tumor-opsonizing antibody to select APX701 & APX702.ResultsOur novel preclinical-stage APX701 & APX702 antibodies have demonstrated the following attributes: high binding affinity to human SIRP alpha (APX701 Kd = 0.95nM, APX702 Kd = 0.88nM), no binding to SIRP gamma, efficient blockade of SIRP alpha binding to CD47(APX701 IC50 = 1.04nM, APX702 IC50 = 0.80nM), potent macrophage mediated phagocytosis, enhancement of ADCP mediated by tumor-opsonizing antibody and favorable developability CMC profiles. In comparison with the benchmark antibody OSE-172, APX701 & APX702 showed potent phagocytosis activity and ADCP enhancement in all donors tested while OSE-172 induced phagocytosis in only 50% of the donors. This may result from the fact that APX701 and APX702 bind to all major SIRP alpha variants (V1, V2 & V8; covering ~92% population) while OSE 172 only binds to SIRPalpha V1 (~50% population).ConclusionsAPX701 and APX702 demonstrate differentiated anti-SIRPalpha activities by enhancing myeloid cell-mediated anti-tumor immunity and reactivating critical tumor clearance mechanisms within the tumor microenvironment.
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