On May 18, 2023 Imugene Limited (ASX: IMU), a clinical stage immuno- oncology company, reported that its onCARlytics technology, in combination with Eureka Therapeutics, Inc.’s ARTEMIS cell receptor platform, has presented preclinical data at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy’s Annual Meeting (ASGCT) (Free ASGCT Whitepaper) demonstrating enhanced anti-tumour activity in vivo against hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) tumours (Press release, Imugene, MAY 18, 2023, View Source [SID1234631817]).
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!
The data, presented as a poster presentation at the ASGCT (Free ASGCT Whitepaper) conference held in Los Angeles, titled ‘Effective combination immunotherapy using onCARlytics and ARTEMIS CD19 T cells against hepatocellular carcinoma’, investigates the combination in the most common type of primary liver cancer and sixth most common cancer worldwide.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) occurs most often in people with chronic liver diseases, such as cirrhosis caused by hepatitis B or hepatitis C infection.
Currently, there are few systemic therapies available for patients with advanced disease in addition to the traditional treatments including ablation, surgical resection, and liver transplantation. CD19-targeting chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy has demonstrated impressive clinical outcomes in blood cancers, but translating this therapy to solid-tumour cancers has met various challenges, including the immunosuppressive microenvironment, on-target off-tumour toxicity, and antigen heterogeneity. To date, CAR T cell therapies against HCC have shown nominal efficacy in clinical trials. Therefore, development of novel and innovative therapeutic approaches against HCC is needed to overcome the challenges and improve clinical outcomes.
onCARlytics in combination with ARTEMIS T cells potentially provide a solution. ARTEMIS T cells differentiate from CAR T cells with lower CRS risks, better tumour infiltration, and higher T cell persistence in pre-clinical studies, making them ideal cell therapy candidates for solid tumours.
The ASGCT (Free ASGCT Whitepaper) event is now in its 26 th year and attracts a range of professionals in the area of gene and cell therapy, who observe new scientific research and technologies alongside peers in the industry. It is being held 16-20 May 2023 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, CA, USA.
The poster presentation can be viewed on the Imugene website.