On June 24, 2020 Replicate Bioscience, Inc. ("Replicate"), a privately-held biopharmaceutical company creating novel treatments to prevent drug resistance in cancers, and Immunomic Therapeutics, Inc., ("ITI"), a privately-held clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the study of nucleic acid immunotherapy platforms, reported that the companies have entered into a research and licensing option agreement to combine their platform technologies to combat infectious diseases and cancers (Press release, Immunomic Therapeutics, JUN 24, 2020, View Source [SID1234561440]).

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ITI and Replicate will develop candidates combining ITI’s UNITE technology with Replicate’s scalable self-replicating RNA (SynRGY technology) for COVID-19, HPV, and EBV. Through the collaboration, ITI will be responsible for all development costs and ITI will also invest in Replicate Bioscience. As part of the investment, ITI’s Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Teri Heiland, will be appointed to Replicate’s Scientific Advisory Board.

"We are excited to partner with Replicate and invest in their seed round as the first strategic shareholder of the company. They have an impressive team with a wealth of expertise in RNA therapeutics and immuno-oncology and we believe that their SynRGY technology is a next-generation solution for combatting drug resistance in cancer," said Dr. William Hearl, CEO of Immunomic Therapeutics. "Through this collaboration, we look forward to combining SynRGY with our UNITE platform in infectious disease development programs, including those useful in cancers."

"Ninety-percent of cancer related deaths are a direct result of drug resistance caused by the evolution of the tumor over time. Developing treatments for drug resistance that are deployable at earlier stages of care is a critical unmet need. Alongside their investment, the Immunomic Therapeutics team brings immense value in supporting the development of our internal wholly-owned immuno-oncology candidates. In addition, their team is ideally suited to clinically advancing our joint candidates," said Dr. Nathaniel Wang, CEO of Replicate Bioscience. "Through this partnership, we are excited to rapidly advance candidates into the clinic for COVID-19 and infectious diseases that lead to the development and progression of various cancers."

About UNITE

ITI’s investigational UNITE platform, or UNiversal Intracellular Targeted Expression, works by fusing pathogenic antigens with the Lysosomal Associated Membrane Protein, an endogenous protein in humans, for immune processing. In this way, ITI’s vaccines (DNA or RNA) have the potential to utilize the body’s natural biochemistry to develop a broad immune response including antibody production, cytokine release and critical immunological memory. This approach could put UNITE technology at the crossroads of immunotherapies in a number of illnesses, including cancer, allergy and infectious diseases. UNITE is currently being employed in Phase II clinical trials as a cancer immunotherapy. ITI is also collaborating with academic centers and biotechnology companies to study the use of UNITE in cancer types of high mortality, including cases where there are limited treatment options like glioblastoma and acute myeloid leukemia. ITI believes that these early clinical studies may provide a proof of concept for UNITE therapy in cancer, and if successful, set the stage for future studies, including combinations in these tumor types and others. Preclinical data is currently being developed to explore whether LAMP nucleic acid constructs may amplify and activate the immune response in highly immunogenic tumor types and be used to create immune responses to tumor types that otherwise do not provoke an immune response.