An­ti­body strat­e­gy to aug­ment ver­sa­tile im­mune cells sparks in­vest­ment in French biotech

A small frac­tion of ver­sa­tile im­mune cells — prized for their abil­i­ty to hack the tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment — are shap­ing up to be the next wave of im­munother­a­pies. These gam­ma delta T cells, in con­trast to their pop­u­lar al­pha be­ta coun­ter­parts har­nessed by CAR-T ther­a­pies, do not re­ly on spe­cif­ic anti­gens but kill when pre­sent­ed with gener­ic ex­pres­sions of in­fec­tion or dis­ease.

Paul Frohna

Most play­ers in the field are work­ing on ways to im­prove ex­ist­ing cell ther­a­pies, by shoring up ef­fi­ca­cy, lim­it­ing tox­i­c­i­ty, mak­ing the tech­nol­o­gy more ac­ces­si­ble with “off-the-shelf” ap­proach­es ver­sus the ex­ist­ing com­plex au­tol­o­gous mod­el, and ex­pand­ing it to oth­er can­cer types be­yond hema­to­log­i­cal ma­lig­nan­cies by en­list­ing lym­pho­cytes such as gam­ma delta T cells. These ef­forts are not try­ing to rein­vent the CAR-T wheel, but in­deed smoothen it so it moves faster, bet­ter and stronger for a broad­er group of can­cer pa­tients.

The in­ter­est in gam­ma delta T cells is dri­ven by the un­der­stand­ing that their pres­ence in the tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment is typ­i­cal­ly linked to a bet­ter prog­no­sis. But in­stead of ex­tract­ing gam­ma delta T cells to en­hance their ac­tiv­i­ty, French biotech Im­Check Ther­a­peu­tics has de­vised an ap­proach that re­lies on bu­ty­rophilin (BTN) mol­e­cules — which are named af­ter the epony­mous pro­tein in cow’s milk — to boost the ac­tion of cer­tain gam­ma delta T cells.

“The beau­ty of it is that we’re us­ing the pa­tient’s in­ter­nal gam­ma delta T cells, are not tak­ing them out, but are us­ing a mon­o­clon­al (an­ti­body) that can be ad­min­is­tered once every three weeks quite sim­ply over 30 min­utes in an in­fu­sion,” Paul Frohna, Im­Check’s chief med­ical of­fi­cer, not­ed in an in­ter­view with End­points News.

“What we’re do­ing is just es­sen­tial­ly har­ness­ing that po­ten­tial that they (gam­ma delta T cells) in­nate­ly pos­sess and am­pli­fy­ing it to a point where they re­al­ly be­come ac­tive in search­ing out and de­stroy­ing the can­cer cells.”

Pierre d’Epe­noux

On Wednes­day, the com­pa­ny un­veiled it had se­cured $53 mil­lion in Se­ries B fi­nanc­ing, bring­ing the to­tal cap­i­tal raised in 2.5 years to near­ly $80 mil­lion. The mon­ey will be used to shep­herd its lead im­muno-on­col­o­gy pro­gram, ICT01, in­to the clin­ic next year.

The ther­a­py is en­gi­neered to work in two ways — to dri­ve the gam­ma delta T cells cir­cu­lat­ing in the blood­stream to look for in­fect­ed cells or tu­mors, while ac­ti­vat­ing the gam­ma delta T cells that are al­ready with­in the tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment, Frohna said.

The raft of drug de­vel­op­ers — in­clud­ing Gam­maDelta Ther­a­peu­tics and its new spin­off Adap­tate, Re­gen­eron-backed Adicet Bio, Nether­lands-based Gade­ta, and Scot­land’s TC Bio­Pharm — keen on gam­ma delta T cells is grow­ing. But Im­Check is con­vinced its ap­proach, though ear­ly in the test­ing phase, has tan­gi­ble ad­van­tages over the crop.

There are oth­er sci­en­tists cog­nizant of the im­pact of BTNs on gam­ma delta T cells, but Im­Check is the on­ly com­pa­ny em­ploy­ing the mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body ap­proach, chief Pierre d’Epe­noux sug­gest­ed.

De­spite the pro­found clin­i­cal re­spons­es in­duced by the in­fu­sion of ge­net­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied al­pha be­ta T cells pack­aged as CAR-T ther­a­pies, the ex­ist­ing ap­proach is rid­dled with lim­i­ta­tions. They on­ly work in blood can­cers, don’t work for a num­ber of pa­tients, tox­i­c­i­ty is an is­sue, are time-con­sum­ing to pro­duce, and the man­u­fac­tur­ing ap­pa­ra­tus re­quired is im­mense. Sales of the pi­o­neer­ing CAR-Ts — No­var­tis’ Kym­ri­ah and Gilead’s Yescar­ta — which can cost up to $1 mil­lion per pa­tient, have un­der­whelmed as a re­sult.

Mean­while, mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies are fa­mil­iar tech­nol­o­gy and are rel­a­tive­ly eas­i­er to en­gi­neer, pro­duce and ma­neu­ver through the reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tem, d’Epe­noux said.

The Im­Check in­jec­tion was co-led by the ven­ture cap­i­tal arm of Pfiz­er, and Bpifrance — with par­tic­i­pa­tion from new in­vestors in­clud­ing Welling­ton Part­ners, Agent Cap­i­tal and Alexan­dria Ven­ture In­vest­ments, as well as ex­ist­ing back­ers such as Life Sci­ences Part­ners, Gimv, Id­in­vest Part­ners, Kur­ma Part­ners, and Boehringer In­gel­heim Ven­ture Fund.

Image courtesy of The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Pro­tect­ing the glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem – what’s at stake?

We are living in a new era of healthcare that is rapidly advancing progress impacting patient outcomes and experiences. We’ve seen a remarkable pace of transformational innovation, applied research, and advanced clinical development over the last decade.

Despite this tremendous progress, there is much more work to be done, and patients are counting on us – now more than ever – to continue that momentum. At the heart of our industry is a focus on developing and delivering medicines for some of the world’s most challenging diseases, including those that have few or no effective treatments today.

Roger Perl­mut­ter lines up deals, fresh fund­ing at Eikon; Sec­ond RSV vac­cine ap­proved; Sev­er­al biotechs flash­ing red; and more

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

As you come back to our website this weekend for ASCO news, don’t forget to check out our updated event lineup at BIO, which will cover everything from the current state of VC investing in biotech to top pharma R&D chiefs discussing how to make pipeline decisions.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Bris­tol My­er­s' Op­di­vo keeps can­cer at bay in more lym­phoma pa­tients than Seagen's Ad­cetris in PhI­II: #AS­CO23

CHICAGO — In a study pitting Seagen’s Adcetris against Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo in newly diagnosed patients with advanced classic Hodgkin lymphoma, a greater proportion of those who received Opdivo saw no cancer growth at one year compared to those who got Adcetris.

In addition, patients in the Opdivo arm of the Phase III trial reported reduced toxicities, according to lead investigator Alex Herrera, a hematologist-oncologist at City of Hope’s cancer cancer in Duarte, CA. Notably, the trial included more than 200 children across both arms. Generally, more than half of children with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma receive radiation therapy, but in this trial, dubbed SWOG S1826, only a handful of patients in the two arms received radiotherapy, sparing many children from long-term side effects of radiation.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Full TIG­IT da­ta from Gilead, Ar­cus show low­er PFS rates than De­cem­ber read­out: #AS­CO23

CHICAGO — Gilead and Arcus unveiled a fuller snapshot of a Phase II study testing their experimental cancer immunotherapy combo that showed lower progression-free survival rates than its previous update, results that are likely to spark further debate over the closely-watched clinical trial.

Last December, the anti-TIGIT/anti-PD-L1 combo, positioned as a first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, recorded data that drew mixed reactions. The latest analysis, presented Saturday afternoon at ASCO, included only a handful more patients than the previous update, but PFS rates fell — in one cohort by nearly three months.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

The Modulo Bio team with CEO Michael Horowitz (fourth from right in semicircle)

Ex­clu­sive: With $8M, neu­ro start­up Mod­u­lo Bio emerges to test small mol­e­cules for ALS, de­men­tia in CEO’s per­son­al mis­sion

Embarking on a personal mission after his best friend’s mother was diagnosed with a mutation-driven case of frontotemporal dementia, Michael Horowitz has pulled together $8 million in venture funding at Modulo Bio to create small molecules for neurodegenerative diseases.

The San Diego and Bay Area biotech will select its lead development candidate and some backup options within six months and then raise a Series A to investigate therapeutics for C9orf72 mutation-driven cases of ALS and frontotemporal dementia, Horowitz told Endpoints News.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Servi­er’s vo­rasi­denib stalls pro­gres­sion of brain can­cer by 61% in piv­otal PhI­II IN­DI­GO study: #AS­CO23

An experimental pill from Servier Pharmaceuticals showed potentially practice-changing results in a narrow group of brain cancer patients, cutting the risk of their cancers progressing by 61%, according to a late-stage clinical trial.

The drug, vorasidenib, is a precision medicine that only works in certain people whose cancer carries mutations in one of two genes called IDH1/2. Doctors hope that the therapy will delay the need for chemotherapy or radiation, which are often used to combat relapses in patients who’ve previously undergone surgery to remove brain tumors.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Take­da ax­es gene ther­a­py deal with Po­sei­da Ther­a­peu­tics amid broad­er re­think

Less than two years after Takeda inked a collaboration with Poseida Therapeutics to develop six liver-directed and hematopoietic stem cell-directed in vivo gene therapies, Takeda will end the partnership on July 30, the company confirmed to Endpoints News.

The breakup is not unexpected, coming on the heels of Takeda’s April announcement that it planned to stop discovery and preclinical work in AAV gene therapy, as well as research and preclinical work on rare hematology. A representative for Takeda confirmed that the partnership ended because of the company’s decision to stop that work.

Endpoints Premium

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.

Roger Perlmutter, Eikon Therapeutics CEO

Roger Perl­mut­ter builds Eikon's pipeline with deal-mak­ing flur­ry, rais­ing $106M more

Eikon Therapeutics announced three business development deals on Thursday, effectively dropping in a pipeline of cancer drugs alongside more than $100 million in fresh funding.

The Hayward, CA-based company has become one of biotech’s richest startups since its 2019 founding, having raised nearly $775 million. It’s developing a massive, automated research approach built around Nobel Prize-winning microscope science to peer inside cells and watch proteins in action. After its Series B last year, PitchBook reported a $3.02 billion valuation. And while CEO Roger Perlmutter declined to comment on that figure, he said its first tranche of nearly $106 million in Series C funding is a “meaningful step-up to our Series B valuation.”

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

As­traZeneca tri­al shows mod­est ben­e­fit in ovar­i­an can­cer, but doc­tors say it's hard to ap­ply find­ings: #AS­CO23

CHICAGO — Adding AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi and Lynparza to the treatment regimen for patients with advanced ovarian cancer and no BRCA mutation extended progression-free survival (PFS) by five months, according to interim data released at the ASCO annual meeting Saturday morning.

However, the design of the Phase III study obscures how much Imfinzi is contributing to the PFS extension, doctors said, making it difficult to apply the findings to clinical practice.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.