Hummingbird Bioscience Initiates HMBD-001 Phase IB Trials in Australia and Partners with Omico to Accelerate Clinical Development

Hummingbird Bioscience, a data-driven precision biotherapeutics company discovering and developing transformative biologic medicines for hard-to-treat diseases, announced the initiation of two Phase IB clinical trials in Australia. The Hummingbird Bioscience-sponsored precision oncology trials will evaluate the activity of HMBD-001, a differentiated HER3-targeting antibody that uniquely inhibits HER3 oncogenic signaling, in patients with squamous non-small cell lung carcinoma (sqNSCLC), and patients with genetic aberrations in HER3 signaling.

Hummingbird Bioscience has identified genetic signatures predictive of response to HMBD-001. To recruit patients with these profiles, the company has partnered with Omico, an Australian government-backed national network of leading researchers, clinicians and industry partners facilitating the delivery of genomic cancer medicine to Australian patients. Under this collaboration, Omico’s PrOSPeCT initiative, which launches today, will provide patient referrals to the HMBD-001 trials. These precision trials bring a new investigational targeted therapy with the potential for broad clinical benefit to oncology patients in Australia.

The lead clinical trial site is GenesisCare, at which Professor Nick Pavlakis, MBBS, MMed (Clin. Epidemiology), Ph.D., FRACP, Board Chair of The Thoracic Oncology Group of Australasia (TOGA), is Principal Investigator of both HMBD-001 Phase IB trials.

“We are excited to announce the initiation of our HMBD-001 Phase IB trials in Australia. We have invested significant resources in understanding how to identify cancers that depend on HER3 signaling for growth. Omico’s PrOSPeCT platform has created an extensive network enabling accelerated access to genomic screening, which allows us to quickly identify and recruit patients that we believe will benefit from HMBD-001. This is an important step in realizing the promise and value of precision oncology,” said Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Hummingbird Bioscience.

“We are thrilled to partner with Hummingbird Bioscience to accelerate precision oncology, and together contribute to better treatment options for cancer patients via clinical trials. It is this kind of partnership that will create a more sustainable and research-led model of health care,” said Professor David Thomas, Ph.D., FRACP, Director of the Centre of Molecular Oncology, UNSW and Chief Executive Officer of Omico.

“Advanced lung cancer is no longer considered a single disease. Identifying biologic targets to enable targeted therapy provides hope for greater benefit than conventional therapy. Omico has provided the platform in which to identify these targets and these two trials are evaluating new targeted therapies in lung cancer subtypes with unmet need. It is thus exciting to be a part of these studies to be able to offer these treatments to our patients,” said Professor Pavlakis.