The company said that patients with advanced refractory solid tumors are being enrolled in the single-agent Phase Ia open-label dose-escalation trial.
Currently, being conducted at four sites in the US, the trial will evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and initial evidence of efficacy of the anti-DLL4/VEGF bispecific antibody.
OncoMed chairman and chief executive officer Paul Hastings said: "This is the sixth novel product candidate discovered by OncoMed researchers and the second product from our multi-billion dollar collaboration with Celgene to be advanced to the clinic by our development team.
"This antibody leverages the clinical experience gained with our anti-DLL4 antibody, demcizumab, which has demonstrated encouraging early signs of clinical activity in Phase Ib clinical trials."
The bispecific antibody was discovered using the company’s MAbTrap antibody display technology, which helps in the rapid identification of monoclonal antibodies that bind targets with high affinity and specificity.
The antibody is the first program based on the company’s BiMAb bispecific platform technology, which allows bispecific antibodies with traditional antibody shape, to enter clinical testing.
In preclinical studies, its anti-DLL4/VEGF bispecific antibody showed robust in vivo anti-tumor efficacy across a range of solid tumor xenografts, including colon, lung and pancreatic cancers, among others.