Hummingbird Bioscience, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing revolutionary therapies for hard-to-drug targets, has announced a collaboration with Tempus, a leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and precision medicine.
The collaboration aims to drive the development of Hummingbird’s HMBD-001 clinical programme as it advances into clinical trials in HER3-driven cancers, including those that harbour neuregulin 1 (NRG1) fusions. In addition, Hummingbird will use 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 increasingly recognised 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% of all solid tumours harbour NRG1 fusions, and therefore it is important to identify this patient population and develop therapies that can treat them.
HMBD-001 is a differentiated anti-HER3 neutralising antibody developed using Hummingbird’s proprietary Rational Antibody Discovery platform. HMBD-001 has been immune-engineered to bind with high affinity to the HER3 dimerisation interface and block HER3 growth signals to the tumour. Most importantly, HMBD-001 blocks HER3 in both open and closed conformation, and in the presence or absence of high concentrations of NRG1. Preclinical 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.