On October 14, 2021 HOOKIPA Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: HOOK, ‘HOOKIPA’), a company developing a new class of immunotherapeutics based on its proprietary arenavirus platform, reported the publication of a comprehensive review article on arenaviral immunotherapies in the peer-reviewed online journal, Frontiers in Oncology (Link) (Press release, Hookipa Biotech, OCT 14, 2021, View Source [SID1234591234]). The article reinforces the potential of HOOKIPA’s versatile arenavirus platform as a promising strategy to elicit potent, tumor-specific T cell responses and help address critical unmet needs in the treatment of cancer.

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"We believe there is broad potential for our foundational arenavirus platform to deliver novel immunotherapies for a range of cancers. The publication in Frontiers in Oncology validates the strength of our science as an emerging strategy in cancer treatment and offers hope to patients and clinicians who need more tools in their fight," said Joern Aldag, Chief Executive Officer at HOOKIPA. "We remain focused on advancing our promising HB-200 program, including progressing to Phase 2 in the coming months, as well as exploring other cancer targets, like prostate cancer, based on our selection of tumor antigens."

Taken together, the publication highlights several key advantages of HOOKIPA’s arenavirus platform, including the ability to:

Directly target and activate antigen-presenting cells (APCs) to induce robust, polyfunctional CD8+ T cell responses;
Target APCs without killing them (non-lytic), unlike other viral approaches which must infect tumor cells directly to be efficacious;
Administer intravenously, which is accessible for all patients and less invasive than some intratumoral approaches required by other viral therapies;
Further augment CD8+ T cell responses with administration of alternating vector therapy to levels previously not observed with other technologies;
Induce sustained cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTLs) responses and durable anti-tumor activity, indicating immunologic memory;
Potentially work synergistically with PD-1 inhibitors, helping expand the number of people who may benefit from therapy and improve long-term outcomes.
The article also reviews clinical data from the ongoing HB-201/HB-202 trial in people with advanced HPV16+ cancers. The clinical data, as presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper) 2021 Annual Meeting, showed that HB-200 is highly immunogenic, inducing unprecedented levels of activated, tumor antigen-specific CD8+ T cells (up to 40 percent of the T cell pool). In addition, HB-201 monotherapy showed an 18 percent overall response rate and median progression-free survival of 3.45 months in heavily pre-treated head and neck cancer patients who progressed on standard of care, including checkpoint inhibitors. While the trial is ongoing, these initial data show results with monotherapy that are better than the current second-line standard of care in these advanced patients. The data offer clinical proof-of-concept for the arenavirus platform, which has the potential to target a range of cancers based on antigen selection.

About HB-201/HB-202
HB-201 and HB-202 are HOOKIPA’s lead oncology candidates engineered with the company’s proprietary replicating arenaviral vector platform. Each single-vector compound uses a different arenavirus backbone (Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus for HB-201 and Pichinde Virus for HB-202), while expressing the same antigen, an E7E6 fusion protein derived from HPV16. In pre-clinical studies, alternating administration of HB-201 and HB-202 showed a ten-fold increase in immune response and better disease control than either compound alone. Both compounds are being evaluated in an ongoing Phase 1/2 study (NCT04180215) in individuals with treatment-refractory HPV16+ cancers who have progressed on standard of care, including checkpoint inhibitors.