On November 30, 2018 Turnstone Biologics, a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company leading the next generation of oncolytic viral therapies, reported its pre-clinical data today supporting the development of a new Vaccinia therapeutic platform at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Meeting in Miami (Press release, Turnstone Biologics, NOV 30, 2018, View Source [SID1234531756]). This platform was developed by Dr. John Bell and his colleagues at The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the University of Ottawa, and engineered to be potent, highly selective and immune-stimulatory. Furthermore, the versatility of the platform enables additional therapeutic agents to be encoded in the virus and produced at tumor sites. This single platform virus has the potential to create a portfolio of diverse products. Turnstone has exclusively licensed this technology.
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This proprietary Vaccinia virus can be delivered systemically and is designed to target and kill cancer cells throughout the body, modulate the tumor microenvironment and stimulate both innate and adaptive immune responses. The virus also contains a very large transgene capacity, allowing for the insertion of multiple therapeutic agents. These agents will be produced selectively at tumor sites as the virus replicates only in the tumor cells, effectively enabling a local combination therapy from a single therapeutic promoting cancer cell killing. Turnstone is conducting IND-enabling studies on TBio-6517, its lead product candidate from this platform, consisting of the Vaccinia virus expressing three potent immune modulators, and anticipates initiating clinical studies in 2019.
"The decades-long search for immunotherapies and combinations that are safe and effective for a range of cancers has proven challenging," said Dr. Bell. "While previous Vaccinia therapies have shown promise, we believe that we have selected and designed significant improvements into this platform, potentially allowing us to safely and effectively combine multiple modes of action into a single therapy."
"This is an exciting time for Turnstone as we unveil another novel viral immunotherapy platform technology in our continued pursuit to develop transformative technologies that advance the treatment of cancer," said Mike Burgess, MBChB, Ph.D., President, Research and Development at Turnstone Biologics. "We are rapidly advancing our lead candidate from this proprietary platform, TBio-6517, to the clinic with the goal of achieving effective and durable outcomes for a greater number of cancer patients."
The oral presentation entitled "Utilizing Novel Oncolytic Vaccinia Virus for Selective Expression of Immunotherapeutic Proteins in Metastatic Tumors" includes key proof-of-concept data:
Cancer Cell Selectivity: The Turnstone Vaccinia virus was shown to rapidly kill more than 80% of cancer cells across multiple cell lines while sparing normal cells, exhibiting high tumor specificity in mouse models.
Potent Oncolytic Activity: The Turnstone Vaccinia virus replicated in human lung, sarcoma, melanoma, ovarian, gastic and thymic tumor explants, and showed efficacy with improved safety in the HT29 colon cancer tumor model.
Transgene Expression: TBio-6517 demonstrated selective expression of its three encoded immunomodulators at the sites of tumors in preclinical models, with no evidence for exposure in the peripheral blood.