Innate Pharma Initiates Iph43 Program to Develop First-In-Class Anti-Mica Antibody

Innate Pharma SA

announces the initiation of a new program to develop an anti-MICA therapeutic antibody in oncology. The program, named IPH43, is the newest to emerge from Innate Pharma's discovery platform. MICA is a highly polymorphic ligand of the NK cell activating receptor NKG2D. MICA is specifically expressed…Innate Pharma SA

announces the initiation of a new program to develop an anti-MICA therapeutic antibody in oncology. The program, named IPH43, is the newest to emerge from Innate Pharma's discovery platform. MICA is a highly polymorphic ligand of the NK cell activating receptor NKG2D. MICA is specifically expressed on several highly prevalent solid tumors including breast, colorectal and lung. Innate Pharma has generated a panel of high affinity antibodies recognizing all forms of MICA which is now being tested and optimized to select the best development candidate. Nicolai Wagtmann, CSO of Innate Pharma, said: "MICA's very clean expression profile on tumor cells and not healthy cells makes it an exciting target for cancer. Like with lirilumab, we successfully generated antibodies overcoming target polymorphism, which is a major challenge and a pre-requisite for development. We now look forward to applying our state-of-the-art immunopharmacology and antibody-engineering platforms to further advance