Hiba-Tx.com General
Hiba Therapeutics is developing ALPs (Antibody Linker Peptides), an AND-gated T cell engager platform designed to activate immune cells only within the tumor microenvironment, requiring two independent tumor signals to trigger a response. The lead program targets lung cancer, demonstrating over 70% complete response in aggressive preclinical animal studies while showing no toxicity across six organ systems. This approach aims to eliminate solid tumors safely by preserving healthy tissue and avoiding systemic side effects common to current T cell therapies.
- Biotechnology
- Drug Discovery & Therapeutics
- Healthcare Technology
Funding
Founders
Product
Problem
Current T cell engagers activate immune cells throughout the body, causing systemic toxicity and severe side effects that limit their therapeutic window. Other treatment modalities such as antibody-drug conjugates carry off-target payload risks, while cell therapies are patient-specific, complex, and difficult to scale for broad clinical use.
Solution
Hiba Therapeutics is developing ALPs (Antibody Linker Peptides), a biologic platform that functions as a molecular lock, requiring two independent tumor signals—a tumor-surface antigen and a tumor-microenvironment protease—to activate T cells. This AND-gate mechanism keeps the therapy inert in healthy tissue and restricts T cell killing power to the tumor site, preventing collateral damage. The lead program is focused on lung cancer, where preclinical studies in highly aggressive animal models demonstrated over 70% complete response rates.
Target Audience
Primary customers are biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies engaged in oncology drug development, particularly those seeking safer alternatives to existing T cell engagers or ADC modalities for solid tumor indications.
Features
- AND-gated dual-signal activation mechanism requiring both a tumor-surface antigen and tumor-specific protease for T cell engagement
- Lead program showed >70% complete response in preclinical studies of aggressive lung cancer
- Ablation studies confirmed the AND-gate mechanism's selectivity
- No toxicity detected across six organ systems in preclinical evaluation
- No Treg activation, distinguishing it from CD3-based T cell engagers
- Off-the-shelf biologic platform designed for scalable manufacturing, unlike patient-specific cell therapies