Immunotherapy

In a clinical trial, Mount Sinai scientists gave immunotherapy to liver cancer patients before they received surgery and found that tumours died off significantly before surgery in a third of the patients, according to results reported in The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology.   The results  The researchers believe that the neoadjuvant immunotherapy—therapy given before surgery—not only may kill the tumour prior […]

Dr Ian Walters, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Portage Biotech, shares how to find the path of least resistance through the immuno-oncology landscape.  Our bodies are naturally trained to identify and remove abnormal cells, including those that are cancerous. Under normal circumstances, a person’s immune system detects proteins on the surface of cancer cells and targets them for elimination. The main cells of the immune system that kill […]

Janssen Pharmaceutical has recently filed for B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) CAR-T therapy Cilta-cel in Japan. Earlier in March 2021, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) filed for the first BCMA CAR-T therapy idecabtagene vicleucel, in the country. Following approval by the Japanese regulatory authority, BMS will have the first-mover advantage. However, stiff competition is expected for multiple myeloma treatment in the […]

Chimeric Antigen Receptor or CAR-T cells, a new form of immunotherapy with genetically engineered immune system cells, has been approved for the treatment of multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer.  Context  In a case study published in Nature Medicine, Sinai scientists reported a previously unknown neurological side effect resembling symptoms Parkinson’s Disease in a patient […]

Biotheus, a biotechnology company based in Zhuhai, China, with multiple clinical-stage assets under clinical development, has announced that its anti-PD-L1/TGF-β bifunctional therapeutic, named PM8001, has been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for conducting clinical Phase II studies as part of an international multicentre clinical trial.   What is PM8001?  PM8001 enhances anti-tumour immune […]

MImAbs has acquired the Berkeley Lights Beacon system via a TechAccess subscription to help its customers in the generation and validation of novel therapeutic antibodies against cancer and inflammatory diseases.  The acquisition  This marks the first Beacon platform to be used in France, which enables MImAbs to provide research institutions, public technology transfer offices, biotech and biopharma customers with a fully integrated […]

Over the last decade, groundbreaking chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapies have become a well-established cancer treatment modality. Clinical research continues to demonstrate the encouraging potential this approach holds for treating a wide array of conditions while increasing safety, tolerability, and efficiency in manufacturing. Atara Biotherapeutics, a California-based biotechnology company, seeks to harness the immune […]

Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies and Immunicom have signed a co-commercialisation agreement to help advance a cancer therapy that selectively removes immune inhibitors from a patient’s bloodstream.   What will this achieve?  This potentially enables the patient’s immune system to more effectively attack cancer tumours. In contrast to immunotherapy pharmaceuticals that introduce foreign compounds into a patient’s body, which often […]

Listen to this article on the DDW Podcast: Combination immunotherapies are one of the most exciting advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMP) being developed, with incredible potential for treating cancer, says Panagiotis Parsonidis, a molecular biologist and lead researcher at RGCC. DDW speaks to him about VAXO-Q-RE developments, a combination immunotherapy that will soon enter clinical trials.  VAXO-Q-RE is […]

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and UCL have found immune cell patterns within tumours that can help predict if patients with kidney cancer will respond to immunotherapy.  Clear cell renal cell carcinoma is the most common type of kidney cancer, accounting for around 75% of cases. Treatment often includes immunotherapy […]

Join Terrence Kenakin as he presents a two-day Applied course on September 21 and September 22 at 10AM CDT.   This two-day course will introduce the topic of biologics as a drug therapy in addition to recombinant replacement protein biologics, peptide signalling, immunotherapy, antibodies features, and nucleotide-based therapies. The unique safety concerns associated with biologics […]

A pilot study has begun to assess the antibody response to a third dose of an authorised Covid-19 mRNA vaccine in kidney transplant recipients who did not respond to two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. The Phase II trial is sponsored and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the […]

eTheRNA immunotherapies, a clinical-stage company developing mRNA-based immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases, has opened a subsidiary, eTheRNA Asia, with offices located in the Sheung Wan area of Hong Kong. The Asia-Pacific region is growing in importance in the global healthcare sector and this new subsidiary will serve as a focus for […]

Listen to this article on the DDW Podcast: Pierre-Louis Joffrin leads Corporate Development at Mogrify. He examines immunotherapies including an assessment of the next generation of stem cell derived products. Biotech has joined the pursuit of next-generation CAR-Ts and it’s not subtle. Some new, others having pivoted towards the area, there are now over 100 companies […]

Ixaka and SomaLogic have created a research collaboration to support the development of aptamer-based bispecific therapeutics. The collaboration will evaluate the safety and efficacy of antigen-specific SOMAmer reagents (modified aptamers that bind tightly and specifically to protein targets) previously identified and screened by SomaLogic as potential candidates for combination with Ixaka’s anti-CD3 aptamers. Ixaka is […]

Immuno-oncology has advanced greatly through T cell-based therapeutic approaches (particularly immune checkpoint inhibitors). However, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) aren’t efficacious in all patients, and they carry risks. What are these risks? Courtney Ferrebee, PhD, Field Applications Scientist, Taconic Biosciences speaks to Lu Rahman. Preclinical in vivo models serve as important tools for studying the mechanisms […]