First Myeloma Patient Receives New Bi-Specific Antibody (BiTE) by Teneobio and Abbvie

Bi-specific antibodies are new class of myeloma drug where an immune system T cell (targeting CD3) is joined with a target on myeloma cells (BCMA) to enable the T cell to kill the myeloma cells.

Teneobio and Abbvie are teaming up to develop a new CD3/BCMA bi-specific antibody to kill myeloma cells with minimal cytokine release. 

“Redirecting T-cells to kill cancer cells is a powerful therapeutic approach in the immuno-oncology space.  We designed TNB-383B to efficiently kill multiple myeloma cells expressing BCMA and minimize cytokine release from CD3-activated T-cells.  This latter attribute is a hallmark of our unique T-cell CD3 engaging therapeutic platform, which is in a number of our follow-on programs and lead clinical candidates,” said Roland Buelow, CEO at Teneobio. “Our new class of T-cell engagers were designed to increase the therapeutic window as monotherapies and they may also afford the opportunity for combination treatments of patients.”

The first patient has been treated in the Phase I study. Phase I studies test for safety, tolerability and dosing of the drug which is administered by IV for relapsed or refractory myeloma patients. 

Other BiTEs currently in development for the BCMA target include the Amgen 420 drug. 

This is an off-the-shelf option and it will be interesting to see if results for the BiTEs have similar effectiveness as CAR T cell therapy, which is personalized. Early results for the AMG-420 drug have looked positive.