Cambridge, UK; September 27, 2019: Kymab, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing antibody-based therapeutics, will present a poster today that details an expanding body of evidence for the dual mechanism-of-action of the company’s anti-ICOS program, KY1044. The poster will be presented at the Fifth CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference (CICON), being held at the Espace Grande Arche in Paris September 25-28, 2019.

KY1044 is a novel fully-human antibody that binds ICOS and is designed to both deplete intratumoral regulatory T cells and stimulate effector T cells to promote the immune response against tumors.

Data presented in the CICON poster demonstrates that KY1044 kills ICOS^high regulatory T cells via Antibody-Dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity (ADCC) in a dose-dependent manner which preserves ICOS^low effector T cells. By depleting ICOS^high regulatory T cells, KY1044 strongly inhibits tumor growth as monotherapy and in combination with anti-PD‑L1. KY1044 also acts as a co-stimulatory agonist antibody on ICOS^low effector T cells and induces an increase of inflammatory cytokine expression by effector T cells in vitro and in vivo. These data demonstrate that KY1044 improves the ratio of effector-to-regulatory T cells.

“Our preclinical studies show that targeting ICOS with KY1044 is a valid approach for inducing a strong anti-tumor immune response,” said Sonia Quaratino, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer of Kymab. “Our team is now investigating the significance of these results in a clinical setting, working together with world-renowned experts from leading cancer centers, who are currently treating patients with KY1044 as single agents and in combination with atezolizumab.”

A Phase 1/2, open-label, multicenter study assessing the safety and efficacy of KY1044 as single agent and in combination with anti-PD-L1 (atezolizumab) in adult patients with selected advanced malignancies is ongoing (NCT03829501) in the U.S., the U.K. and Italy.

The poster can be viewed during CICON in the following session:

Title:                  A novel antibody targeting ICOS increases intratumoral cytotoxic to regulatory T cells ratio and induces tumor regression

Presenter:           Richard C.A. Sainson Ph.D., Senior Director, Translational Medicine

Session Title:     Poster Session B

Location:            Hall B

Poster board #:   B040

Date and Time:  Friday September 27, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. CET