Molecular science company Caris Life Sciences and clinical-stage precision biotherapeutics company Hummingbird Bioscience announced a collaboration to advance the development of HMBD-001, Hummingbird’s anti-HER3 candidate targeting multiple cancer indications.
HMBD-001 is a an IgG1 antibody designed to target an epitope on the critical dimerization interface of HER3—A member of the EGFR family known to aid in tumor growth and metastasis. HMBD-001 blocks both ligand-dependent and ligand-independent signaling, producing anti-tumor effects. Under this new collaboration, Caris’ clinico-genomic database will be used to support clinical trial design to allow the identification of patients with biomarkers that are potentially associated with response to HMBD-001.
“Caris’ partnership with Hummingbird Bioscience aligns with our goal of leveraging molecular and clinical data to power and accelerate the development of precision therapies,” said Brian Lamon, PhD, chief business officer of Caris Life Sciences. “Our partnership will help evaluate biomarkers to better understand the clinical utility for this novel therapy, drive patient recruitment and clinical trial access, and may ultimately provide new treatment alternatives and options to patients who are not responding to current therapies.”
Currently, Caris’ bioinformatics platform includes genomic data of more than 400,000 patients and real-world outcomes data for an additional 275,000 patients. The company’s comprehensive molecular profiling services leverage both whole-exome and whole-transcriptome sequencing combined artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning analysis algorithms designed to provide clinical and research insights into complex diseases like cancer. The company offers both solid-tumor and liquid biopsy assays to aid in the identification and treatment of cancer.
Hummingbird Bioscience takes a computational and systems biology approach to wet lab discovery capabilities to develop biologic medicines for hard-to-treat diseases from initial discovery through clinical development. In addition to HMBD-001, the company has a second clinical stage candidate, HMBD-002 a humanized anti-VISTA IgG4 monoclonal antibody targeting multiple solid tumors. Both HMBD-001 and HMBD-002 are in Phase I studies. The company has two other candidates in pre-clinical development HMBD-501 and HMBD-011 targeting cancer and autoimmune indications.
“With our proprietary technologies, Hummingbird Bioscience discovers and develops unique biotherapeutics against challenging oncology and autoimmune targets. To ensure that these novel therapies succeed, we must conduct intelligent and focused clinical trials on patients who are likely to benefit the most,” said Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, PhD, CSO and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. “As a data-driven company, we understand the value of using large cohorts of molecular and clinical information to gain a deeper understanding of the patients who may respond to this exciting new therapy and track their response. We are excited by the potential of this partnership, and we look forward to better, more efficient clinical development with access to Caris’ vast amount of real-world data and state-of-the-art comprehensive profiling technologies.”
