Identification / licence of innovative targets

The starting point for our research is mainly external to our Company with the acquisition of patent rights to targets, active molecules or therapeutic methods, mainly from academic research. To acquire commercial rights from research institutions, we must maintain a high level of expertise and recognition in the scientific community. Our specialization plays a decisive role and our visibility is ensured notably thanks to the involvement by our Company’s founding scientists, who have made very significant contributions to progress in our field 

As an illustration, IPH 1101 and IPH 2101, respectively agonist of Tγδ lymphocytes
and activator of NK cells, both come from licensing agreements with academic institutions
(INSERM and University of Genoa), on the basis of work done by the Company’s founder scientists.

Validation of the therapeutic concept

This stage requires in vitro and in vivo efficacy models, the ability to evaluate pharmacodynamic activity in the relevant animal models and expertise in clinical biology for the design and realization of retrospective studies in cooperation with hospital staff.

As an illustration, scientists at Innate Pharma, in collaboration with scientists from INSERM,
have set up a mouse model, in which NK cells express a human receptor (transgenic mice),
in order to study the activity of our drug candidates in tumor models. 
This model enabled to consolidate the pre-clinical rational for activating NK cells.

Drug candidate generation

The next step is to generate an optimized drug-candidate from a model molecule. For antibodies, this model can be murine antibody, not suitable for human use. We don’t have all competencies in house for generating human or humanized recombinant antibodies but rely on collaboration or licensing agreements to gain access to the required tools.  

As an illustration, we gained access to antibody engineering technologies through our agreement
with Novo Nordisk A/S. More recently, we have executed an agreement with the French
company Vivalis  to gain access to a new technology for producing recombinant
optimized antibodies for the IPH 4201 program.

Drug-candidate development

Although the questions raised during development are relatively standardized, our specialization in immunopharmacology and clinical immunology provides us with special expertise in the mechanisms of action common to all of our products, which is an important asset for this part of development. We possess specific expertise in setting up pre-clinical toxicology and pharmacology in animal models (cell culture laboratories, generation of non-standard animal models, flow cytometry, etc) which gives us a competitive advantage beyond our main field of expertise. 

Approximately half of our research and development staff is specialized in immunology.
The other half is specialized in the various branches involved in development:
chemistry and  analytical chemistry, protein chemistry, bioanalytical
and pharmacokinetic methods and pharmacotoxicology.

Clinical development

The Company has so far chosen to focus on early clinical trials. Phase I and Phase IIa trials enable to assess the safety profile of the drug-candidate and its optimal dosage, as well as to first estimate its efficacy in patients (clinical proof of concept). Clinical studies are the responsibility of the Company, which is the trial promoter and has set up a dedicated organization ensuring that the design of clinical trials and the conditions of their implementation are in accordance with the “Good Clinical Practices” or “GCP” defined by the regulations. The biological follow-up of the trials (“immunomonitoring”) is essential for extracting the relevant biological information and evaluating the activity of our drug candidates in patients on the basis of immunological markers.

As at today, the Company is or has been sponsor of 5 Phase I and 4 Phase II clinical trials.
Its drug candidates have been given to more than 200 patients.