Bolt Bio goes bust as in­vestors boo sin­gle re­sponse in ear­ly test against HER2-ex­press­ing tu­mors

Bolt Bio’s BDC-1001, an an­ti­body con­ju­gate drug de­signed to amp up the body’s in­nate im­mune sys­tem re­sponse to tu­mors, post­ed a sin­gle par­tial re­sponse in a Phase I/II study in pa­tients with HER2-ex­press­ing sol­id tu­mors af­ter a year of dos­ing. Just 13 of 40 evalu­able pa­tients showed any signs of “clin­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty,” the biotech said Mon­day.

BDC-1001 links a HER2-tar­get­ing biosim­i­lar of Her­ceptin with a TLR7/8 ag­o­nist, which is de­signed to ac­ti­vate myeloid cells in the in­nate im­mune sys­tem and dri­ve tu­mor cy­to­tox­i­c­i­ty, Bolt said. But the ear­ly re­sults paint the pic­ture of a drug with lit­tle ef­fect on HER2 tu­mors, one of the most high­ly val­i­dat­ed tu­mor tar­gets in drug de­vel­op­ment.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER