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BriaCell Therapeutics Corp. (BriaCell), a clinical-stage biotechnology company that develops novel immunotherapies to transform cancer care, and its majority owned subsidiary, BriaPro Therapeutics Corp. (BriaPro), announced that BriaPro is developing novel multivalent agents for cancer treatment. BriaPro has filed a provisional patent application for the underlying platform referred to as “TILsRx”.
The TILsRx platform enables simultaneous engagement of multiple tumour-associated and immune pathway targets. Multivalent agents (including antibodies, soluble receptors and cytokines) address immune suppression and T cell exhaustion often seen with tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and aim to improve T cell activation and persistence in the tumour microenvironment. Designed to activate TILs and enhance TIL binding to tumour cells as well as block immune checkpoints that suppress anti-tumour responses, TILsRx agents are multifunctional in their cancer killing actions. Specific elements in TILsRx agents include soluble CD80, which has a dual function as an immune checkpoint inhibitor and as an immunostimulator, anti-CD3, which is a potent T cell activator, IL-21, which is an enhancer of cytotoxic T cell function, and anti-STEAP1 (STEAP1 is a cancer antigen expressed in prostate cancer among others). An early candidate target is B7-H3, a tumour antigen which is overexpressed in prostate, lung, breast, pancreatic, and ovarian cancer while minimally expressed in normal tissue.
“We have developed novel multivalent anti-cancer agents which we expect to be both highly selective and highly effective, maximizing on-target efficacy while minimizing off-target toxicity to provide improved clinical responses in multiple indications,” stated Miguel Lopez-Lago, PhD, BriaCell and BriaPro CSO.
“The TILsRx platform reflects our goal to develop an effective and safe class of therapeutics for cancer patients. TILsRx agents combine shared core components that improve manufacturing efficiency with elements that target specific cell surface antigens. This strategy provides the flexibility to include new immunotherapy targets identified in the future. We look forward to advancing this exciting technology through pre-clinical and clinical stages,” stated Markus D. Lacher, PhD, a key inventor of the technology.
“Our advanced multivalent technology provides us with a platform to quickly expand our proprietary pipeline of novel immuno-oncology programs in BriaPro in a cost-effective manner,” stated Dr. William V. Williams, BriaPro and BriaCell president & CEO. “We anticipate that the multivalent approach will have activity against multiple types of cancers and may also synergize with BriaCell’s cell-based cancer vaccine programmes.”
BriaCell is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that develops novel immunotherapies to transform cancer care.
BriaPro is a pre-clinical stage immunotherapy company developing binding agents and proteins with the intention to boost the ability of the body’s own cancer-fighting cells to destroy cancerous tumours.
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