Myrio Therapeutics has announced a collaborative research partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and NYU Langone Health to accelerate the development of next generation solid tumour T cell immunotherapeutics.
The agreement brings together expertise in peptide HLA (pHLA) binder discovery, bispecific T-cell engager development and cell immunotherapies to overcome barriers to effective and durable immunotherapies through three core pillars.
The first is targeting oncogenic drivers by leveraging highly specific anti pHLA antibodies to directly attack the molecular drivers of cancer. Another is to amplify innate immune functions by coordinating approaches to harness and enhance the body’s natural immune defences. The third, utilising novel CAR architectures, looks to co-develop next-generation chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) with heightened sensitivity to a broader range of targets, including those with low abundance.
The three parties are looking to generate deeper insights into these mechanisms and explore the therapeutic potential of the technologies. The next step will be to formally establish a company and initiate seed funding to move these advances toward clinical development.
Myrio Tx CEO, Graeme Wald, said: “This is a magnificent case of putting the best technologies and people together to develop products for solid tumour treatments. The next step will be to formally establish a company and initiate seed funding to move these advances toward clinical development.”
“A major challenge in the development of cancer treatment is creating tolerable approaches that also deliver effective and long-lasting response in patients,” said Daniel J Powell Jr., a professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
“By uniting the diverse expertise of these three groups, we are in an excellent position to create safe, effective, durable therapy for difficult-to-treat cancers.”
“We are thrilled to move forward quickly with this collaboration, bringing together uniquely complementary technologies to tackle the challenges of solid tumours,” said Mark Yarmarkovich, assistant professor, NYU Langone Health.
“By combining our platforms, we have the opportunity to create truly differentiated therapies that can change the treatment landscape and, most importantly, make a meaningful difference for patients.”
