In 2009, we formed AbCheck s.r.o., our 100% owned, independently run antibody screening platform company, located in the Czech Republic. AbCheck discovers and optimizes human therapeutic antibodies with a versatile technology platform. Tailored to the specific needs of its customers and their desired target product profiles, AbCheck designs a personalized approach leveraging both cutting edge (e.g., microfluidics, rabbit mass humanization) and classical (e.g., phage/yeast display libraries) technologies to provide high quality leads. In addition to providing candidates for Affimed projects, AbCheck has multiple partnerships throughout the U.S. and Europe with globally active pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies such as Tusk Therapeutics, bluebird bio, Eli Lilly, Daiichi Sankyo, Pierre Fabre and others. We have one U.S. subsidiary, Affimed Inc., with senior employees in finance, investor relations, business development, corporate strategy, communication and medical/clinical operations.
Recent Developments
In January 2023, the FDA issued a written response to our pre-investigational new drug (“IND”) meeting request for the AFM13 and Artiva AB-101 co-administered combination therapy in relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma and the exploratory arm evaluating the combination in r/r CD30-positive peripheral T-cell lymphoma.
In March 2023, we announced that the first patient was dosed in a phase 1 multicenter, open label, first-in-human dose escalation study of the innate cell engager (ICE®) AFM28 monotherapy in patients with CD123-positive relapsed/refractory (r/r) acute myeloid leukemia (AML). AFM28 efficiently directs natural killer (NK) cells to CD123-positive leukemic cells in our preclinical models, including blasts and leukemic stem and progenitor cells, inducing their depletion in samples of patients with AML and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).
In April 2023, we received a written notice (the “Notice”) from the Listing Qualifications Department of The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”) indicating that, for the last thirty consecutive business days, the bid price for the Company’s common shares had closed below the minimum $1.00 per share requirement for continued listing on the Nasdaq under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5550(a)(2) (the “Minimum Bid Price Rule”). In accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5810(c)(3)(A), the Company has been provided an initial period of 180 calendar days, or until October 2, 2023, to regain compliance. If the Company fails to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Rule during this period, the Company may consider applying to transfer its securities from The Nasdaq Global Select Market to The Nasdaq Capital Market, provided that the Company meets the applicable market value of publicly held shares required for continued listing and all other applicable requirements for initial listing on The Nasdaq Capital Market (except for the bid price requirement). Such transfer would provide the Company with an additional 180 calendar days, or until April 1, 2024, to regain compliance. There can be no assurance that the Company would be eligible for the additional 180 calendar day compliance period, if applicable, or that the Nasdaq staff would grant the Company’s request for continued listing. The Notice has no immediate effect on the listing or trading of the Company’s common shares. The Company intends to monitor the bid price of its common shares and consider available options to regain compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Rule, such as effecting a reverse stock split, for which authorization was given during the Company’s annual shareholder meeting 2023.
In April 2023, we announced the final results from our phase 2 REDIRECT study investigating our innate cell engager (ICE®) AFM13 monotherapy in patients with heavily pretreated advanced-stage r/r PTCL. The results were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting by Dr. Won Seog Kim, Professor of Hematology-Oncology at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul and a principal investigator for the study, and established that AFM13 monotherapy showed efficacy in the treatment of relapsed/refractory peripheral T cell lymphoma (r/r PTCL) patients with a differentiated safety profile. As stated above, primary efficacy measures include an ORR of 32.4% and a CR rate of 10.2%. Key secondary and exploratory outcome measures include safety, durability of response, progression free survival and overall survival. Median DoR was 2.3 months, median PFS was 3.5 months and median OS was 13.8 months. PFS and OS were comparable with currently approved therapies for r/r PTCL. Of all PTCL subsets, patients with AITL exhibited the highest ORR (53.3%) and CR (26.7%) with DoR not meaningfully different across the various subsets. The safety profile of AFM13 was well managed and consistent with previously reported data of prior and ongoing clinical studies with AFM13. Most common TEAEs were IRR (25%), neutropenia (10.2%) and pyrexia (8.3%). No AFM13-related fatal toxicities were observed.
In April 2023, Affimed conducted a reorganization of its operations to focus on the Company’s three clinical stage development programs. As a result of the reorganization, the Group reduced its full-time equivalent headcount by approximately 25%. As a result of the reorganization, the Group incurred a one-time expenditure for termination payments of €1.1 million during the three and six months ended June 30, 2023. Affimed expects this one-time cash expenditure to be offset by cost savings during the remainder of 2023.
In May 2023, we announced the FDA clearance of our IND application for a clinical study evaluating the combination of AFM13, and AB-101, AFM13-203. The phase 2 study will be open-label, multi-center, multi-cohort study with a run-in phase followed by a dose optimization and an expansion phase. The study will evaluate the safety and efficacy of AFM13 in combination with AB-101 in patients