Immuno-oncology company Imugene Ltd (ASX:IMU) and City of Hope, a world-renowned independent cancer research and treatment centre near Los Angeles, have entered into a licensing agreement for the patents covering a novel combination immunotherapy .
The therapy unleashes a CD19 expressing oncolytic virus to enable CD19 directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies to target solid tumours, which are currently otherwise difficult to treat with CAR T cell therapy alone.
The worldwide exclusive licence of the patents covering the cell therapy technology, which includes CF33-CD19, known as onCARlytics, or an agent that tags cancer cells for CAR T cell destruction, was developed at City of Hope.
City of Hope scientists led by Saul Priceman, Ph.D., have combined two potent immunotherapies. Imugene’s CD19 oncolytic virus and CD19 CAR T cell therapy — with the goal of targeting and eradicating solid tumours that are otherwise difficult to treat with CAR T cell therapy alone.
“Our research demonstrates that oncolytic viruses are a powerful and promising approach that can be combined strategically with CAR T cell therapy to effectively target solid tumours in patients,”said Mr Priceman, assistant professor in City of Hope’s Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.
“This therapeutic platform addresses two major challenges that make solid tumours so difficult to treat with immunotherapy. There are limited solid tumour targets that T cells can be redirected against with CARs.
“Solid tumours are surrounded by a brick wall — a so-called immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment. When a CAR T cell attempts to enter the tumour, survive, and kill cancer cells, it can’t effectively because of this barrier.”
Imugene’s MD and CEO, Ms Leslie Chong, said this platform opens up the entire field of use to cellular therapy for the CF33 OV.
“Supercharging CF33 with CD19 is a revolutionary new paradigm in combination therapy with any CD19 binding therapies to include bi-specifics, antibody drug conjugates and CAR T, cell therapy for solid tumours,” Ms Chong said.
“The CAR T cell field currently only treats ~10% of all cancers such as blood or liquid tumours, whereas this technology has the potential to open up the solid tumour market.”
City of Hope scientists genetically engineered an oncolytic virus to enter tumour cells and force the expression of CD19 on the cell surface. The scientists were then able to use CD19 directed CAR T cells to recognise and attack these solid tumours. The preclinical research was published recently and featured on the front cover of the prestigious journal Science Translational Medicine.
CD19 CAR T cell therapy is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat certain types of blood cancers, namely B cell lymphomas and acute lymphoblastic leukemia. This new research may expand the use of CD19 CAR T therapy with onCARlytics to the treatment of patients with potentially any solid tumour.
This discovery highlights a City of Hope research collaboration including Priceman, Anthony Park, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow in Priceman’s Lab, Stephen Forman, M.D., professor of the Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation and director of City of Hope’s T Cell Therapeutics Research Program, and Yuman Fong, M.D., professor and Sangiacomo Family Chair in Surgical Oncology at City of Hope.
Our City of Hope team designed this CF33 oncolytic virus to do what it does so well. It enters the cancer cell, uses the cell’s own machinery to replicate itself, and engineer the cancer cells to express the well-known CAR T cell target, CD19,” Ms Fong said.
A separate four year Sponsored Research Agreement with City of Hope and the research team led by Dr.Priceman to further develop the technology has also been executed.
Under the terms of the licence agreement, Imugene acquires the exclusive world-wide rights to develop and commercialise the patents covering the CF33-CD19 for which it has agreed to pay City of Hope license fees comprising an upfront, annual maintenance fees which are creditable against future royalty payments, performance based consideration linked to the achievement of certain value- inflection development milestones and commercial outcomes, as well as net sales based on single digit royalty payments, and sublicensing fees.