At Hummingbird, we believe that modern approaches to systems biology and data science can overcome the challenges of classical methods of therapeutics discovery, and profoundly improve the way we deliver new transformative medicines.
Target Biology
Our Approach
Using cutting-edge computational biology tools, AI and machine learning algorithms, we build our understanding of the structure and function of proteins involved in disease mechanisms, then identify optimal therapeutic targets, strategies, and epitopes to effectively impact the disease.
How We Apply This
Existing drugs against HER3, a well-known protein implicated in many cancers, do not completely block its activation. Through structure-based analysis, we unravelled the critical interfaces of the HER3 protein that underlie its function. Then, using our platform, we identified an optimal yet elusive epitope that can fully inactivate HER3.
Lead Discovery
Our Approach
Our unique antibody discovery platform enables us to overcome many of the challenges of finding potent therapeutic antibodies and to generate antibodies precisely engineered for efficacy, safety and develop-ability. This includes agonists, antibodies against transmembrane proteins and conserved regions of rapidly mutating viral proteins.
How We Apply This
Instead of relying on the overlap of immuno-dominant regions with functional interfaces of HER3, which is common in most classical antibody discovery, we specifically directed an immune response to the optimal yet elusive epitope on HER3 that our platform had identified. The resulting antibodies potently blocked HER3 activation to stop tumor cell growth.
Translational Science
Our Approach
Our translational mindset is grounded in a deep understanding of the mechanisms of disease, the causes of disease resistance and unmet medical need. We use human tissue studies, omics and relevant disease models to test our differentiated hypotheses in our labs and in collaboration with academic and industry partners.
How We Apply This
In some patients and in some tumor types, treatments can fail due to upregulation of HER3 signalling. Through integrative analyses of robust datasets, we have identified those patient populations who may most benefit from HER3 therapy, for example, patients with NRG1-fusions.
Pre-Clinical Development and Manufacturing
Our Approach
Taking a new therapeutic to the clinic is a complex team effort that must overcome the diverse challenges of protein engineering, pharmacology and toxicology, cell line and process development, and the manufacturing of materials for the clinic. We believe the key to doing this successfully is to retain overall control of the key steps to ensure we maintain the highest quality whilst meeting our ambitious timelines.
How We Apply This
Our team of experienced scientists have taken multiple programs through pre-clinical development and manufacturing to deliver data packages and material for clinical trials.
Clinical Development
Our Approach
We believe that clinical trials in defined patient populations, leveraging innovative clinical methodologies and scientific-driven hypotheses, can efficiently deliver clinical proof of concept for our programs.
How We Apply This
We have assembled a team of industry veterans in medical, clinical and regulatory functions, complemented by collaborations with multiple clinical KOLs at the world’s leading clinical research centres and international partnerships, to operationalize our clinical strategies.
