Innate Pharma SA announced that Sanofi has made the decision to progress IPH6101/SAR443579 into investigational new drug (IND)-enabling studies. IPH6101/SAR443579 is a NKp46-based NK cell engager (NKCE) using Innate’s proprietary multispecific antibody format (Gauthier et al. Cell 2019). In the first research program of the collaboration, IPH6101/SAR443579 has shown anti-tumor activity in pre-clinical models, including encouraging pharmacokinetic (PK), pharmacodynamic (PD) and safety data in preliminary non-human primate studies, as well as positive manufacturability properties, leading to its selection as a drug candidate for development. Innate’s multifunctional NKCE technology is comprised of novel antibody formats that simultaneously target two activating receptors, NKp46 and CD16, on NK cells as well as a tumor antigen on cancer cells. Such trifunctional NKCEs have proven more effective in pre-clinical models than classical antibodies directed against the same tumor target, as co-engagement of multiple surface receptors on NK cells is required for their full activation.