Abstract
The receptor tyrosine kinase FGFR3 is frequently mutated in bladder cancer and is a validated therapeutic target. Although pan-FGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) have shown clinical efficacy, toxicity and acquired resistance limit the benefit of these agents. While antibody-based therapeutics can offer superior selectivity than TKIs, conventional ligand-blocking antibodies are usually ineffective inhibitors of constitutively active receptor tyrosine kinases. Furthermore, the existence of multiple oncogenic variants of FGFR3 presents an additional challenge for antibody-mediated blockade. Here, we developed a tetravalent FGFR3×FGFR3 bispecific antibody that inhibited FGFR3 point mutants and fusion proteins more effectively than any of the conventional FGFR3 antibodies that we produced. Each arm of the bispecific antibody contacted two distinct epitopes of FGFR3 through a cis mode of binding. The antibody blocked dimerization of the most common FGFR3 oncogenic variant (S249C extracellular domain mutation) and inhibited the function of FGFR3 variants that are resistant to pan-FGFR TKIs. The antibody was highly effective in suppressing growth of FGFR3-driven tumor models, providing efficacy comparable to that of the FDA-approved TKI erdafitinib. Thus, this bispecific antibody may provide an effective approach for broad and highly selective inhibition of oncogenic FGFR3 variants. Significance: Development of a bispecific antibody that broadly inhibits gain-of-function FGFR3 variants provides a therapeutic strategy to target tumors with oncogenic FGFR3 point mutations and fusions, a particularly difficult case for antibody blockade.