On January 11, 2021 Navrogen, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company specialized in developing therapies for cancer and immune-related disorders, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, reported that have established a research collaboration aimed at testing mesothelin-targeting therapies for the treatment of cancers where humoral immunity is suppressed (Press release, Navrogen, JAN 11, 2021, View Source [SID1234573806]).
Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:
Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing
Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!
Mesothelin is a cell surface protein over-expressed on various malignancies, including lung cancer and mesothelioma. Certain therapeutic antibodies that use humoral immune function to kill cancer cells as well as antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) targeting mesothelin are negatively affected by Humoral Immuno-Oncology (HIO) factors that are produced in the tumor microenvironment. To overcome this mechanism of HIO suppression, Navrogen has employed its proprietary HIO factor screening and block-removed immunoglobulin technology (BRITE) to engineer HIO refractory mesothelin-targeting agents.
The collaboration with the Thoracic and GI Malignancies Branch at NCI’s Center for Cancer Research, led by Raffit Hassan, M.D., is a joint effort to analyze ADCs for in vivo efficacy against human mesothelioma models developed by the Hassan laboratory. A major focus of the Hassan laboratory is developing mesothelin-targeted agents for treating cancer to include the development of mesothelioma patient-derived xenografts that mimic the molecular characteristics of patient tumors. Navrogen and NCI will combine their expertise and experimental resources to enable the comprehensive characterization of mesothelin targeting ADCs as agents for future human studies against mesothelin-expressing cancers including mesothelioma.
"We have engineered a HIO-refractory anti-mesothelin ADC (NAV-001) that will be tested in collaboration with NCI researchers by employing their patient-derived tumor models that are clinically relevant to mesothelioma and lung cancer," commented Dr. Luigi Grasso, Navrogen’s Chief Scientific Officer. "Results of these studies will aid in determining optimal dosing and tumor subtypes for Navrogen to pursue clinically".