Recently, the R&D team of ImmuneOnco Biopharmaceuticals (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (referred to as "ImmuneOnco"“the company’, Hong Kong Stock Exchange stock code: 01541.HK)  reports the preclinical research results of IMM47 under the tittle of IMM47, a humanized monoclonal antibody that targets CD24, exhibits exceptional anti-tumor efficacy by blocking the CD24/Siglec-10 interaction and can be used as monotherapy or in combination with anti-PD1 antibodies for cancer immunotherapy " in the journal "Antibody Therapeutics".

(The link of the paper in full text is : https://academic.oup.com/abt/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/abt/tbad020/7265417?utm_source=advanceaccess&utm_campaign=abt&utm_medium=email)

CD24 widely expresses in a variety of solid tumors, including breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, colorectal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, renal cell carcinoma, and ovarian cancer. It is well accepted that CD24 is an important biomarker of poor prognosis in these cancers and focused in clinical R&D.

The paper explains the mechanism of IMM47 on destroying tumor cells and its powerful ability to inhibit tumor growth by a serial in vitro and in vivo experiments. With high specificity and binding ability to CD24 expressed on tumor cells, IMM47 can block immunosuppressive signals transmitted via the CD24/Siglec-10 pathway to macrophages, natural killer cells (NK) and T cells. With genetically engineered IgG1-Fc, IMM47 effectively activates macrophage and natural killer cell via powerful ADCP and ADCC. Li, song and Chen, Dianze share the first author. In the in vivo efficacy studies on model animals, IMM47 significantly increases the number of M1 macrophages in tumor tissues and downregulates CD24 expression in tumor cells, either alone or in combination with PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitors and other drugs. By using both combinations, it also demonstrates encouraging abilities to inhibit tumor growth.

With these promising results, the IND application for IMM47 to treat solid tumors was  accepted by the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). It is also ready to submit the application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the near future.

The corresponding author, Dr. Tian, Wenzhi ( founder and chairman of ImmuneOnco), said:

"I am very pleased to see the preclinical research results of our IMM47 published in Antibody Therapeutics. IMM47 is a humanized monoclonal antibody targeting CD24 for cancer therapy. The antibody screening for CD24 was quite challenge due to its small size of extracellular domain which exhibits weaker immunogenicity. We persevered through the accumulation of a lot of trivial work and finally got the IMM47 molecule with high affinity and specificity. IMM47 can specifically bind to CD24 and effectively activate macrophages and natural killer cell to regain immune response. Preclinical studies support the conclusion that IMM47 has powerful anti-tumor activity with great clinical value. We will quickly advance the clinical research of the IMM47 to benefit more subjects sooner."