Siglec Programs

Leveraging Siglec antibodies to outsmart cancer

What are Siglecs?

We are developing a Siglec agonist fusion protein and an antagonist anti-Siglec antibody to reduce immune-related adverse events (irAEs) and fight solid tumors.

Siglecs Binding
The binding of Siglecs to sialic acids plays a crucial role in cell-cell interaction and communication, particularly in the immune system.1 We are developing Siglec agonist fusion protein and an antagonist anti-Siglec antibody to reduce irAEs and fight solid tumors.

1. CD24 and Siglec-10 selectively repress tissue damage-induced immune responses.  Chen GY, Tang J, Zheng P, Liu Y. Science. 2009 Mar 27;323(5922):1722-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1168988.

AI-071: a next-generation agonistic Siglec ligand

Immunotherapies can come with many irAEs. We’ve developed an agonistic Siglec antibody to help mitigate the excessive adverse events that comes with cancer treatments.

Our Siglec agonist, AI-071, is designed for broad siglec coverage, with potential application across immunotherapy-treated indications. Our unique Siglec agonist offers:

Siglec AI-071 structure

Broader Siglec coverage

Potentially stronger biologic activity

Improved processibility and productivity

In preclinical mouse models, treatment with AI-071 significantly reduced mortality of animals receiving anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1 combination therapy and extended survival from irAEs.

How AI-071 Works

AI-071 works to reduce inflammation and irAE in 2 ways:

  1. AI-071 may bind to Damage Associated Molecular Pattern (DAMP) molecules or Pathogen Associated Molecular Pattern (PAMP) molecules to prevent them from binding to key receptors known to initiate inflammatory responses.
  2. AI-071 can bind to Siglec signaling components to help reduce inflammatory signaling.

Less inflammatory signaling leads to less inflammation, and potentially less immune-related adverse events for patients.

ONC-841: an anti-Siglec mAb for solid tumors

Siglec-10 is a protein that can potentially suppress the immune system’s ability to fight off diseases.

Some cancers exploit Siglec-10 signaling to avoid being recognized and attacked by the immune system. Targeting this protein in solid tumors may enable the patient’s immune system to better fight cancer.2 Our potential first-in-class anti-Siglec10 mAb has shown antitumor activity in syngeneic xenograft models.

See how we turn our science into action.

ONC-841

2. Barkal AA, Brewer RE, Markovic M, Kowarsky M, Barkal SA, Zaro BW, Krishnan V, Hatakeyama J, Dorigo O, Barkal LJ, Weissman IL. CD24 signalling through macrophage Siglec-10 is a target for cancer immunotherapy. Nature. 2019 Aug;572(7769):392-396. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1456-0.

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