Abstract 5679: Tetra-specific antibody GNC-035: guidance and navigation control (GNC) molecule development for treatment of ROR1+ malignancies
Authors: Khalili Jahan Salar , Xiao Sa , Zhu Yi 
Published: April 2023

Cancer-intrinsic immune escape mechanisms and immune cell suppression can progressively diminish the curative potential of currently available T cell-based therapies. Barriers to successful T cell checkpoint therapies may be addressed by redirection of T cells toward tumor antigens using T cell engagers that function independently of MHC presented T cell epitopes. Here we demonstrate that an octavalent, tetraspecific Guidance and Navigation Control (GNC) antibody, GNC-035, binds to ROR1, CD3, PD-L1, and 4-1BB and mediates redirected T cell cytolysis of human solid tumor and leukemia and lymphoma cell lines in a ROR1 specific manner.

Experiments using GNC-035 to redirect T cell cytotoxicity toward ROR1+ cancer cell targets show the T cells in PBMC are highly functionalized by pre-exposure to GNC-035. This pre-exposure of PBMC to GNC-035 results in greater tumor cell killing efficacy compared to concurrent exposure of tumor cells in the presence of T cell effectors. This result suggests that the systemic delivery of GNC-035 can condition the T cell compartment to increase the therapeutic impact of T cells migrating to solid tumors, with or without preexisting infiltrating T cells. This beneficial conditioning of T cells by pre-exposure to GNC-035 is not observed with pre-exposure to CD3xROR1 bi-specific T cell engager controls.

To evaluate the potential for GNC-035 to mediate cytokine release syndrome, the molecule is evaluated in soluble formats in the presence of PBMC and the ROR1+ A549 cancer cells, or HUVEC cells. Under these conditions, the cytolysis of A549 target cells is detectable after exposure to GNC-035 at 100 fM concentrations as well as the release of IFN-γ and certain other inflammatory cytokines at 24 or 48 hours post-treatment. However, consistent with Blinatumomab treatment, PBMC exposed to soluble GNC-035 for 24 or 48 hours on a monolayer of HUVEC cells, produced significantly greater amounts of IFN-γ and IL-6 at concentrations greater than 10 pM. These results indicate GNC-035 has a therapeutic window of activity that is ROR1 dependent, spanning cytolytic activity, and IFN-γ release without a production of IL-6 and which is wider than that indicated by Blinatumomab in PBMC.

Collectively, the GNC-035 represents a class of multi-specific and multi-modal immune cell engagers with potential to mediate ROR1+ cancer regression, overcome TCR-based immune escape and reverse T cell immune suppression in tumor microenvironment. The clinical phase I-b study of GNC-035 is under way in breast cancer and hematologic cancers and the available data exhibit strong signals of efficacy with acceptable tolerability.

Citation Format: Jahan Salar Khalili, Sa Xiao, Yi Zhu. Tetra-specific antibody GNC-035: guidance and navigation control (GNC) molecule development for treatment of ROR1+ malignancies. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 5679.