On October 4, 2017 Neon Therapeutics, an immuno-oncology company developing neoantigen-based therapeutic vaccines and T cell therapies to treat cancer, reported that the company has entered into an exclusive license agreement with the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) for technology to be utilized in Neon Therapeutics’ personalized neoantigen T cell therapy program, NEO-PTC-01 (Press release, Neon Therapeutics, OCT 4, 2017, View Source [SID1234527449]).
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Under a collaborative research agreement established in 2016, Neon Therapeutics and the NKI have developed an ex vivo induction protocol which produces autologous T cells targeting each patient’s own neoantigens. This collaborative research has been led at the NKI by John Haanen, M.D., Ph.D., professor and head of the Medical Oncology Division at NKI, and Joost van den Berg, Ph.D., director of the Cell Therapy facility, with support from Neon co-founder Ton Schumacher, Ph.D., professor and senior member of the Division of Molecular Oncology & Immunology. Neon Therapeutics has now licensed intellectual property and know-how from NKI to support further development of NEO-PTC-01 into clinical development.
NEO-PTC-01 is an autologous T cell therapy, where a proprietary induction protocol is used to induce multiple T cell populations specific for multiple neoantigen targets. Neon Therapeutics will continue to work with the NKI to prepare for the initiation of a phase 1 clinical study by the end of 2018.
"Our collaboration with the Netherlands Cancer Institute has been a productive one, bringing in complementary capabilities to accelerate the development of Neon Therapeutics’ personalized T cell program," said Richard Gaynor, president of research and development at Neon Therapeutics. "We are excited to enter the next phase of NEO-PTC-01 development, and look forward to continuing to work with the NKI to scale-up the GMP manufacturing process."
"We are very happy to see our collaboration with Neon Therapeutics entering the next phase. It nicely confirms that our efforts to exploit new opportunities for immunotherapy are quickly moving in the right direction," said Prof. Dr. Rene Medema, director of research at the NKI.
"We have made great progress working with Neon Therapeutics to develop this technology to induce de novo neoantigen-based T cell responses," said Prof. Dr. Haanen. "We are pleased that Neon Therapeutics will continue to develop these technologies to bring the promise of fully personalized cell therapies to cancer patients."