Announced in late 2020, the clinical-stage biotech company, Hummingbird Bioscience and artificial intelligence (AI) and precision medicine technology company Tempus partner to help drive clinical development of AI-driven precision medicine against cancer.
Hummingbird’s lead clinical program, HMBD-001, as it advances into clinical trials in HER3-driven cancers, including those that harbour neuregulin 1 (NRG1) fusions. As part of the collaboration, Hummingbird will be leveraging Tempus’ AI-enabled platform and proprietary data, as well as joining its TIME Trial® Network, for rapid identification, site activation and efficient enrolment of cancer patients who have NRG1 fusions and meet eligibility criteria for HMBD-001 clinical trials.
NRG1 fusions are a rare genetic mutation that are increasingly recognized as a driver of multiple tumour malignancies, and an actionable target for HER3 targeted therapy. NRG1 fusions cause the overproduction of NRG1 ligands, resulting in increased HER3 activation and tumour growth. Up to 1 percent of all solid tumours harbour NRG1 fusions, therefore, it is important to identify this patient population and develop therapies that can treat them.
HMBD-001 is a uniquely differentiated anti-HER3 neutralizing antibody that was developed using Hummingbird’s proprietary Rational Antibody Discovery platform. HMBD-001 has been immune-engineered to bind with high affinity to the HER3 dimerization interface and block HER3 growth signals to the cancer. Most importantly, HMBD-001 uniquely blocks HER3 in both open and closed conformations, and in the presence or absence of high concentrations of NRG1.2 Pre-clinical studies have shown that these differentiated properties of HMBD-001 lead to robust and sustained tumour growth inhibition in multiple HER3 cancer models, including those with NRG1-fusions.
“We are excited to collaborate with Tempus to leverage their just-in-time clinical trial program and apply Hummingbird’s deep knowledge of disease driving protein mechanisms in order to identify patients with actionable genetic abnormalities,” said Dr Piers Ingram, Co-founder and CEO of Hummingbird.
“We look forward to Hummingbird joining our TIME Trial Network, providing patients across the country access to its HMBD-001 clinical trial. This collaboration is an opportunity to identify those patients who could benefit from this investigational therapy, and if they are eligible, rapidly open the trial just for them.” Said Amy Franzen, Vice President of Operations, Therapies, Tempus. [APBN]