SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA I September 13, 2023 I Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: HARP), a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company developing novel T cell engagers, announced today that AbbVie has notified the company that it will not exercise the exclusive license option of the parties’ Development and Option Agreement in connection with Harpoon’s HPN217 program, which targets B cell maturation antigen, or BCMA. ​The Agreement, which will terminate effective October 12, 2023, granted AbbVie an option to a worldwide, exclusive license to the HPN217 program. The program has been and will remain exclusively owned by Harpoon, and the company plans to complete the ongoing Phase 1 clinical trial with data to support the next phase of development.

“There is a significant unmet medical need for patients living with advanced multiple myeloma who have progressed after prior treatments, including patients with prior BCMA-targeted therapies, and we remain confident in HPN217’s potential to offer these patients a differentiated treatment option,” said Julie Eastland, President and CEO of Harpoon Therapeutics. “We will share interim results with the scientific community at the upcoming IMS meeting. The preliminary data from the HPN217 study continue to be encouraging with a favorable safety profile.”

Harpoon previously announced abstract acceptance and a poster presentation of preliminary data up to and including 12 mg cohorts from the dose escalation portion of the Phase 1 study of HPN217 in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. The presentation will take place on September 28, 2023 at the 20th International Myeloma Society (IMS) Annual Meeting being held in Athens, Greece.

Harpoon continues to be committed to advancing its T cell engager pipeline, including HPN328, DLL3 targeting TriTAC® and HPN601, an EpCAM targeting ProTriTAC™, and plans to present the interim Phase 1/2 clinical data from HPN328 at European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) being held on October 20-24, 2023.

About Harpoon Therapeutics
Harpoon Therapeutics is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company developing a novel class of T cell engagers that harness the power of the body’s immune system to treat patients suffering from cancer and other diseases. T cell engagers are engineered proteins that direct a patient’s own T cells to kill target cells that express specific proteins, or antigens, carried by the target cells. Using its proprietary Tri-specific T cell Activating Construct (TriTAC®) platform, Harpoon is developing a pipeline of novel TriTACs initially focused on the treatment of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Harpoon has also developed a proprietary ProTriTAC™ platform, which applies a prodrug concept to its TriTAC platform to create a therapeutic T cell engager that remains inactive until it reaches the tumor. Harpoon’s third proprietary technology platform, extended release TriTAC-XR, is designed to mitigate cytokine release syndrome. For additional information about Harpoon Therapeutics, please visit www.harpoontx.com.

SOURCE: Harpoon Therapeutics