Retrospective analysis of model-based predictivity of human pharmacokinetics for anti-IL-36R monoclonal antibody MAB92 using a rat anti-mouse IL-36R monoclonal antibody and RNA expression data (FANTOM5)

Abstract

Accurate prediction of the human pharmacokinetics (PK) of a candidate monoclonal antibody from nonclinical data is critical to maximize the success of clinical trials. However, for monoclonal antibodies exhibiting nonlinear clearance due to target-mediated drug disposition, PK predictions are particularly challenging. That challenge is further compounded for molecules lacking cross-reactivity in a nonhuman primate, in which case a surrogate antibody selective for the target in rodent may be required. For these cases, prediction of human PK must account for any interspecies differences in binding kinetics, target expression, target turnover, and potentially epitope. We present here a model-based method for predicting the human PK of MAB92 (also known as BI 655130), a humanized IgG1 $\kappa$ monoclonal antibody directed against human IL-36R. Preclinical PK was generated in the mouse with a chimeric rat anti-mouse IgG2a surrogate antibody cross-reactive against mouse IL-36R. Target-specific parameters such as antibody binding affinity (K_D), internalization rate of the drug target complex (k_int), target degradation rate (k_deg), and target abundance (R₀) were integrated into the model. Two different methods of assigning human R₀ were evaluated: the first assumed comparable expression between human and mouse and the second used high-resolution mRNA transcriptome data (FANTOM5) as a surrogate for expression. Utilizing the mouse R₀ to predict human PK, AUC_0-∞ was substantially underpredicted for nonsaturating doses; however, after correcting for differences in RNA transcriptome between species, AUC_0-∞ was predicted largely within 1.5-fold of observations in first-in-human studies, demonstrating the validity of the modeling approach. Our results suggest that semi-mechanistic models incorporating RNA transcriptome data and target-specific parameters may improve the predictivity of first-in-human PK.

Keywords: CAGE; FANTOM; RNA transcriptome; TMDD; cross-species; expression; human prediction; mechanistic modeling; modeling; monoclonal antibody; nonlinear pharmacokinetic; semi-mechanistic; surrogate; target-mediated drug disposition.