Corbus Pharmaceuticals’ CRB-601 shows anti-tumor activity

Corbus Pharmaceuticals announced details of new pre-clinical data on CRB-601, its avbeta8 blocking antibody, presented at the 2023 American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting April 14-19 in Orlando. The poster explores the relationship between CRB-601 antitumor activity, PK and its binding to the alphavbeta8 receptor in the tumor. In addition, the impact on TGFbeta pathway signaling and tumor immune cell population are also presented. CRB-601 exhibited dose dependent tumor growth inhibition in the EMT6 tumor model which was significantly augmented in combination with anti-PD1 therapy. These effects were associated with changes in tumor micro-environment immune cell populations with marked increases in infiltrating T cells, NK cells and M1 polarized macrophages. Efficacy correlated with cell surface alphavbeta8 occupancy by CRB-601. CRB-601 treatment downregulated phosphorylation of SMAD proteins pSMAD2 and pSMAD3, consistent with blockade of the canonical TGFbeta signaling pathway.