Phanes Therapeutics, Inc., a US-based company involved in innovative discovery research and clinical development in oncology, announced on Monday that it has dosed its first patient in the phase one clinical study (NCT05482893) of PT886, a first-in-class native IgG-like bispecific antibody (bsAb) aimed at claudin 18.2 and CD47 to treat gastric, gastroesophageal junction and pancreatic adenocarcinomas.

PT886 was assembled using Phanes' proprietary bispecific antibody platforms PACbody and SPECpair and was granted orphan drug designation (ODD) for the treatment of pancreatic cancer by the FDA last year.

PT886 directly kills tumour cells via both the ADCP activity of macrophages and ADCC activity of NK cells, and by targeting both claudin 18.2 and CD47 overexpressed on the surface of tumour cells, it broadens the tumour killing spectrum. Additionally, PT886 is expected to induce the presentation of tumour neoantigens by channelling tumour cells into phagocytotic antigen presenting cells (APCs) and stimulate adaptive immune system by indirectly activating T cell killing of claudin 18.2 low or negative tumour cells through recognition of tumour neoantigens. The anti-CD47 arm of PT886 is highly differentiated and the company said that it has demonstrated minimum binding to human red blood cells while maintains strong binding activity to CD47 on tumour cells.

The multi-centre Phase I clinical trial of PT886 is evaluating the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and preliminary efficacy of PT886 in patients with locally advanced or metastatic gastric, gastroesophageal junction and pancreatic cancers that have progressed after all available standard therapy or for which standard therapy has proven to be ineffective, intolerable, or is considered inappropriate.