PhosImmune, Pure MHC Collaborate To Develop New Cancer Immunotherapies
By C. Rajan, contributing writer
Oncology biotech company PhosImmune has announced that it has entered into a license and collaboration agreement with Pure MHC, a subsidiary of PureProtein specializing in disease-specific target identification and drug discovery for cancer and other diseases. Under the agreement, the two companies will work together to develop novel antibody-based immunotherapies designed to fight cancers.
Virginia based PhosImmune is a clinical stage biotech firm developing therapeutic cancer vaccines. PhosImmune has expertise in the identification of phosphopeptides on tumor cell epitopes in association with HLA molecules. These phosphopeptide tumor targets (PTTs) are derived from proteins directly implicated in malignancy and are unique to tumor cells. Thus, they make ideal candidates for PTT-targeting drugs that can specifically fight the tumor cells without harming normal tissues.
Pure MHC, a part of Emergent Technologies, has developed technology to generate antibodies that mimic the immune system’s T cell receptors. These T cell receptor mimics (TCRms) bind specifically to peptide-HLA complexes on tumor cell surfaces. The TCRms can be used to develop antibody drug conjugates or other antibody products that use the immune system’s cells to attack TCRm carrying tumors, thus representing a powerful cancer immunotherapeutic approach.
Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, PhosImmune will provide the PTTs to PureMHC, which will then develop new TCRms to target these PTTs. Both companies will jointly own and commercialize the resulting TCRms products. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed by the companies.
"We are very pleased to have this strategic partnership with PureMHC, and look forward to working closely together to create a new generation of targeted immunotherapies," said Dr. Kevin FitzGerald, CEO of PhosImmune. "Pure MHC is one of the very few companies world-wide to successfully create antibodies to peptide-HLA complexes.
"The powerful combination of PhosImmune's highly tumor-specific peptide antigens with PureMHC's innovative antibodies provides an exciting opportunity to advance new immunotherapies for clinical testing," said FitzGerald. "We look forward to a rewarding collaboration and to co-discovering novel therapeutic modalities for currently intractable diseases."
PureMHC has several years of experience in developing novel HLA peptides as markers of cancer, infectious, and autoimmune diseases, as well as in developing the corresponding TCRms as therapeutics to target these markers. PureMHC is also developing anti-cancer monoclonal antibodies in collaboration with Catalent Pharma.