On December 11, 2015 CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTMX), a biopharmaceutical company developing investigational Probody therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, reported that it has selected its second clinical candidate from its Probody therapeutic pipeline (Press release, CytomX Therapeutics, DEC 11, 2015, View Source;p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2121979 [SID:1234511333]). The candidate, CX-2009, is a first-in-class Probody drug conjugate targeting CD166. CX-2009 utilizes ImmunoGen, Inc. conjugate technology.

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"CD166 is highly and homogeneously expressed in the majority of patients with a variety of solid tumors," said Michael Kavanaugh, M.D., chief scientific officer. "Despite high expression of CD166 in normal tissues, our Probody technology is designed to concentrate CX-2009 only in tumor tissue. As such, we believe that CX-2009 is uniquely positioned to deliver on the promise of CD166 as a target. We look forward to testing CX-2009 in patients and are on track to file the IND in 2017."

In October, CytomX researchers presented preclinical safety and efficacy data for the CD166 Probody drug conjugate program at the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets. The data showed that CytomX’s CD166-directed Probody drug conjugates were efficacious in xenograft tumor models at doses equal to or below the predicted human dose. The therapeutics were also well-tolerated in preclinical studies at a dose predicted to be therapeutically relevant.

Therapeutics developed with CytomX’s Probody platform are designed to be active in the tumor while sparing healthy tissue. By restricting activity to the tumor microenvironment, Probody therapeutics directed against both validated and novel targets have been shown pre-clinically to enable anti-tumor efficacy with a significantly enhanced safety window, relative to traditional antibody-based therapies. CytomX’s preclinical pipeline of wholly-owned and partnered programs includes Probody cancer immunotherapies, Probody drug conjugates and T-cell engaging Probody bispecifics.