Abstract 2616: BCG033, a novel bispecific antibody-drug conjugate targeting PTK7 and TROP2, demonstrates preclinical efficacy against triple-negative breast cancer and other solid tumor xenografts

Abstract Metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients have poor overall survival, highlighting the need for novel treatments. Although the TROP2-targeting ADC sacituzumab govitecan recently received accelerated approval from the FDA for the treatment of patients with metastatic TNBC, the on-target toxicity of this single-target agent has limited clinical efficacy. We sought to improve the specificity and efficacy of future TNBC-targeted therapies by generating a bispecific antibody-drug conjugate (bsADC) targeting TROP2 and PTK7, another tumor-associated antigen (TAA) that is highly expressed in TNBC and correlates with poor prognosis and metastatic disease. We previously generated fully human antibodies targeting PTK7 and TROP2 from Biocytogen’s fully human, common light chain antibody transgenic RenLite® mice, which were selected such that their monovalent antibodies exhibited reduced internalization profiles for improved tumor selectivity. These antibodies were then constructed into a bispecific antibody targeting PTK7 × TROP2, which demonstrated reactivity to human and cynomolgus monkey antigens and binding to multiple cancer cell lines, including TNBC, with high affinity. PTK7 × TROP2 bsAb also showed enhanced internalization in vitro compared with parental monovalent antibodies. Next, the PTK7 x TROP2 bsAb was conjugated to vcMMAE with a drug-to-antibody ratio (DAR) of 4 to generate a bsADC (BCG033). BCG033-vcMMAE demonstrated superior activity to benchmark and parental ADCs in a cell line-derived xenograft (CDX) TNBC model with low PTK7 expression. Here, we demonstrate that BCG033-vcMMAE ADCs also exhibited superior efficacy to benchmark ADCs in PDX models, including TNBC xenografts and NSCLC xenografts. We next tested the efficacy of the PTK7 x TROP2 bsAb conjugated to BLD1102, Biocytogen’s novel, proprietary linker/payload composed of a DNA Topo I inhibitor payload and a highly hydrophilic protease-cleavable linker, with a DAR of 8. BCG033-BLD1102 showed potent activity in a colorectal cancer PDX model in which benchmark ADCs were inactive, even at high doses. In summary, BCG033 conjugates demonstrate promising preclinical efficacy in vivo, which ultimately could provide a new treatment option for TNBC and other solid tumors expressing PTK7 and TROP2. Citation Format: Sufei Yao, Chengzhang Shang, Gao An, Chaoshe Guo, W. Frk an, Yi Yang. BCG033, a novel bispecific antibody-drug conjugate targeting PTK7 and TROP2, demonstrates preclinical efficacy against triple-negative breast cancer and other solid tumor xenografts [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 2616.