Harpoon Therapeutics

Harpoon Therapeutics was founded in 2015 in the San Francisco Bay area to develop and commercialize anti-cancer biologics that engage a patient’s own immune cells to fight cancer and other diseases. The successful development of the bispecific (“BiTE™ or bispecific T cell engager”) antibody Blincyto® demonstrated that any T cell, regardless of TCR specificity and HLA context, can be redirected to kill cancer cells. Blincyto® achieved unprecedented efficacy with 40-80% complete response rates in relapsed and refractory acute lymphocytic leukemia patients and showed 69% complete and partial response rates in relapsed and refractor non-Hodgkins lymphoma. This efficacy was observed at picomolar serum concentrations indicating that this approach is substantially more potent than conventional monoclonal antibodies approved for use in cancer treatment today. Harpoon has taken this therapeutic concept to the next level to create novel non-antibody biologic therapies with improved efficacy and broad applicability in the treatment of human cancers and other life-altering diseases of the immune system. Patrick Baeuerle co-founded Harpoon Therapeutics together with Luke Evnin, who is a founder of MPM Capital, and established the company to innovate and translate novel biologics platforms to address the needs of cancer patients not being met by current checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T and other T-cell engaging approaches. During its first year, Harpoon invented and validated a novel tri-specific antibody platform for engaging T cells --called TriTAC™-- that was designed to address limitations of bi-specific approaches leading to improved activity against solid tumors, improved convenience of administration, and treatment of more tumor types and other immunologic diseases. Harpoon has discovered proprietary drug candidates and has an expansive research portfolio. Harpoon is planning to file its first 2 INDs and initiate its first clinical study next year.