June 21 Preclinical Quick Takes: AnaptysBio targets PD-1 for immune disease; plus Forty Seven, Homology and moreBy BioCentury Staff

AnaptysBio agonizes PD-1 for inflammatory disease
AnaptysBio Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) presented what CEO Hamza Suria called “the first data from anyone on a PD-1 agonist mAb” at the 2019 Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCiS) meeting Wednesday, showing its wholly owned PD-1 agonist mAb ANB030 inhibited tetanus toxoid recall responses in human blood. AnaptysBio is also co-developing PD-1 agonist CC-90006, a Phase I candidate, with Celgene Corp. (NASDAQ:CELG); the partners are among a wave of companies seeking to exploit immuno-oncology targets for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases (see “The Flip-Side of Immunotherapy”).

Forty Seven licenses antibodies from Stanford's Weissman
Forty Seven Inc. (NASDAQ:FTSV) has licensed IP covering antibody-mediated hematopoietic stem cell engraftment from company co-founder Irving Weissman at Stanford University. Weissman and colleagues reported in a Cell Stem Cell paper that pretreating the recipient with a combination of six antibodies enabled transplantation of HSCs from donors with mismatches in major histocompatibility complex genes, without immune suppression through chemotherapy or radiation...