[Click eStock] "ABL Bio, Promising ABL103... Target Price Up"

Yuanta Securities raised the target price for ABL Bio to 60,000 KRW on the 17th, stating that ABL103, which shows effectiveness on targets attracting attention from big pharma, is promising.

Researcher Hyunsoo Ha of Yuanta Securities explained in a report on the same day, “B7-H4 is a B7 family protein like PD-L1 (B7-H1) and is overexpressed in cancer types such as ovarian cancer, breast cancer, and endometrial cancer,” adding, “It tends to be expressed mutually exclusively with PD-L1, which has attracted significant interest from big pharma.”

Researcher Ha noted, “Besides B7-H4 antibodies, ADCs and bispecific antibodies are currently in clinical stages, but the competitiveness of single antibodies is not high,” and added, “ADCs and bispecific antibodies are undergoing clinical result announcements and technology transfers.”

He stated, “ABL103 is currently in phase 1 clinical trials, and based on preclinical results, it stimulates 4-1BB in a B7-H4-dependent manner, so it is judged that the occurrence of hepatotoxicity will not be high,” further explaining, “Additionally, tumor suppression effects were observed proportional to B7-H4 expression, but even tumors with low expression showed a 60% tumor suppression effect.”

He continued, “This is believed to be a bystander effect of T cells activated by 4-1BB stimulation, and it is expected that efficacy could be seen even in patient groups with low B7-H4 expression.”

Furthermore, he said, “A combination therapy clinical trial is planned following a supply contract with MSD for Keytruda, and due to the mutually exclusive expression characteristics of PD-L1 and B7-H4, complementary effects are also expected,” adding, “The recent development of combination therapy with MK-6070 (DLL3 TCE) and I-Dxd is expected to confirm the potential for expanding combination therapies between TCE and ADC in the future.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.