Immune Pharmaceuticals Inc., a clinical-stage company developing novel therapies for the treatment of immuno-inflammatory diseases and cancer, has entered into an exclusive license with Atlante Biotech SAS, to the patents and know-how for a new format of bispecific antibodies.

Dr. Daniel Teper, CEO of Immune, commented, "This is an important milestone as we make progress with our immuno-oncology pipeline. Our research will focus on the application of this novel bispecific platform to target immune checkpoints. Our plan is to generate additional pre-clinical data with selected bispecific drug candidates in 2016."

The R&D work on the bispecific antibodies will be performed in Immune's recently established Immunology R&D unit at the Alexandria Center for Life Sciences in New York City, under the leadership of Dr. Boris Shor, executive director of R&D, who joined the company from Pfizer Oncology.

In recently presented data, the platform prototype bispecific antibody was shown to retain effector functions and mediate redirect killing of target cells by cytokine induced killer T cells. The bispecific antibody demonstrated direct anti-cancer effects in vitro, as well as in vivo anti-tumour activity and improved survival in a mouse xenograft model of disseminated leukemia. A collaborative European consortium led by Dr. Kadouche from Atlante Biotech, and funded by a European grant developed the novel platform for production of tetravalent IgG1-like bispecific antibodies.