CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#CARTtherapy—Elicio Therapeutics, a private biotechnology company developing a pipeline of potent immunotherapies based on its proprietary lymph node targeting technology, today announced Christopher Haqq, M.D., Ph.D., Elicio’s Executive Vice President, Head of Research and Development, and Chief Medical Officer, will co-lead a workshop, “Improving Efficacy and Solid Tumor Infiltration with Combination Strategies,” at the upcoming CAR-TCR Digital Summit Europe, February 16 – 18, 2021.
The Elicio Amphiphile platform enables precise targeting and delivery of immunogens directly to the lymphatic system, orchestrating the immune response, to significantly amplify and enhance the body’s own system of defenses to defeat cancer and stop its recurrence. When combined with CAR-T therapy, AMP-CAR-T amplifiers specifically designed to bind to the CAR receptor are presented on the cell surface of immune cells in the lymph nodes. CAR-T cells passing through the lymph nodes en route to the tumor see these AMP-CAR-T amplifiers on the surface of specialized antigen presenting cells (APCs), which then deliver potent activating signals to T cells to coordinate their expansion, development of anti-tumor functions, and mobilization against tumors.
“Through published studies in mice, Amphiphile activation of the chimeric antigen receptor when CAR-T cells entered the native micro-environment of lymph nodes, enhanced treatment of multiple solid tumors,” said Christopher Haqq, M.D., Ph.D., Elicio’s Executive Vice President, Head of Research and Development, and Chief Medical Officer. “We have seen that this combination approach enhances trafficking, infiltration and persistence. Such potent amplification of the engineered T cell immune responses were critical, enabling prolonged survival and durable cures in solid tumor models where CAR-T alone had no effect.”
At the summit Dr. Haqq will discuss:
- Activation of CAR-T cells with Amphiphiles delivered to the lymph nodes to induce massive CAR-T expansion.
- Lymph node activation to improve CAR-T function.
- Ten-fold improvement in CAR-T trafficking into the solid tumors.
- Durable complete responses observed for solid tumors across cancer types.
- Persistence of CAR-T cells enabling rejection of additional cancer cells in rechallenge experiments that used doses lethal to untreated mice.
- Induction of antigen spreading using the Amphiphile technology to recruit antitumor T cells to participate in a broad tumor attack.
Elicio is developing the AMP-CAR-T platform for combination with CAR-T cell therapies in a variety of settings including those targeting CD19, BCMA, and several solid tumor indications.
About the Elicio Amphiphile Platform
The Elicio Amphiphile platform enables precise targeting and delivery of immunogens and cell-therapy activators directly to the lymphatic system, the “brain center” of the immune response, to significantly amplify and enhance the body’s own system of defenses, defeat solid and hematologic cancers, and prevent their recurrence. Once in the lymph nodes, Amphiphile immunotherapies are taken up by antigen presenting cells (APC’s) to orchestrate signaling to natural or engineered immune cells in order to maximize therapeutic immune responses to disease. This strategy has been used to improve the activity of immunostimulatory agents, antigens, adjuvants, and cell-therapies that generate little to no response when used in the conventional forms. By precisely targeting these immunotherapies to the lymph nodes, Amphiphiles can unlock their full potential to generate and amplify anti-tumor immune responses. This substantially enhanced anti-tumor functionality and long-term protective memory may someday unlock the full potential of the immune response to eliminate cancer.
About Elicio Therapeutics
Elicio Therapeutics is advancing the Amphiphile technology across immunotherapy platforms to defeat cancers and infectious diseases. By combining expertise in materials science and immunology, with years of immunotherapy research, Elicio is engineering potent Amphiphile immunotherapies that precisely target and fully engage the lymph nodes, the site in our bodies where the immune response is orchestrated. Elicio is engineering lymph node targeted cell therapy activators, immunomodulators, adjuvants and vaccines for an array of aggressive cancers and infectious diseases. Elicio’s lead Amphiphile vaccine, ELI-002, targeting KRAS-driven cancers will begin initial patient studies in solid tumor patients in the first quarter of 2021. The Amphiphile platform emerged from laboratories of Darrell Irvine, Howard Hughes Investigator and Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. For more information, please visit https://elicio.com.
Contacts
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Merina Zeller
mzeller@denterlein.com
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