Arrivent Biopharma Inc. has obtained IND clearance from the FDA for ARR-002 (AV-P138-ADC), an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) with an initial focus in ovarian and endometrial cancers and broader therapeutic potential across solid tumors. A phase I trial is expected to open in the second half of the year.

Biosion Inc. recently presented preclinical data describing their B7H3/PD-L1 bispecific antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) BSI-737 for the treatment of cancer.

Beijing Innocare Pharma Tech Co. Ltd. has received IND approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for ICP-B208, an antibody-drug conjugate targeting CDH17, which is highly expressed in gastrointestinal cancers, including colorectal, gastric and biliary tract cancers and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Simcere Zaiming Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.’s SIM-0613 for injection has received clinical trial approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), enabling initiation of a clinical trial for advanced solid tumors.

Signadori Bio SAS has successfully completed its seed extension financing round, bringing to €11.1 million (US$13 million) the total raised to support its development of a next-generation, off-the-shelf, in vivo-engineered, monocyte immunotherapy platform to treat solid tumors.

Tumors with strong immunosuppressive microenvironments such as microsatellite-stable colorectal cancer (MSS-CRC) remain unresponsive to immune checkpoint blockade therapy, with <20% of gastrointestinal tumors responding to therapy.

In a recent study published in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, researchers from the University of Chicago and Pyxis Oncology Inc. investigated the role of KLRG1 in limiting antitumor immunity and evaluated its potential as a therapeutic target in patients refractory to first-generation checkpoint inhibitors. KLRG1 is an immunoreceptor tyrosine inhibitory motif domain-containing receptor identified as a marker of senescent/terminally differentiated T and natural killer (NK) cells.

Next-generation T-cell engager (TCE) specialist Cytospire Therapeutics Ltd. has raised £61 million (US$82.7 million) in a series A round, equipping it to advance the lead program CYT-X300 to the clinic in the treatment of EGFR-positive solid tumors. The company’s pan gamma delta (γδ) TCEs are designed to overcome problems with cytokine release syndrome, on-target effects on healthy cells, and the excessive activation of CD3 that have occurred with earlier bispecific antibodies that bind to the CD3 receptor on T cells.