Repertoire Immune Medicines Presents First Clinical Data on PRIME IL-15 Cell Therapy in Advanced Metastatic Cancers at Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting

On November 10, 2020 Repertoire Immune Medicines, a clinical-stage biotech company creating a new category of immune therapies for cancer, autoimmunity and infectious disease, reported that preliminary clinical and biomarker data of a Phase 1/2 clinical study for its PRIME IL-15 cell therapy (RPTR-147) in patients with advanced metastatic solid tumors. Preliminary results from the ongoing study will be available on the SITC (Free SITC Whitepaper) Virtual Poster Hall, November 11 – 14, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST (Press release, Repertoire, NOV 10, 2020, View Source [SID1234570558]). The poster is titled "PRIME IL-15 (RPTR-147): Preliminary clinical results and biomarker analysis from a first-in-human Phase 1 study of IL-15 loaded peripherally-derived autologous T cell therapy in solid tumor patients" (#801).

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This first-in-human, multi-center Phase 1/2 study is designed to characterize the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and preliminary antitumor activity in patients with relapsed or refractory metastatic solid tumors. Following administration of PRIME IL-15, 10 of 17 patients with advanced metastatic disease had stable disease, of which four and patients were stable for more than six months.

Clinical biomarker data also provided evidence of PRIME IL-15 biological activity. Persistence of T cell clones derived from RPTR-147 was observed in both the blood and within the tumor. Further analysis using Repertoire’s DECODE platform is underway to determine the antigen specificity of those cells. Matched evaluable biopsies were obtained in seven patients. Increases in tumor-infiltrating T cell lymphocytes in solid tumor biopsies were observed post treatment in five of seven patients for CD8+ T cells and in four of seven patients for CD4+ T cells.

No dose-limiting toxicities, nor evidence of cytokine-release syndrome, neurotoxicity or other serious immune-related toxicity were observed. The Phase 1/2 study is ongoing and further dose escalation is planned.

"These preliminary PRIME IL-15 clinical results, showing that disease in 10 of 17 patients with aggressive cancers has stabilized, is encouraging," said Harriet Kluger, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Deputy Section Chief of Medical Oncology at the Yale School of Medicine. "Additional study of this new potential therapeutic modality is certainly warranted, and we look forward to continuing to evaluate PRIME IL-15, including at higher doses and in combination with other immune therapies."

PRIME IL-15 is a novel autologous, non-genetically modified multi-clonal T cell product loaded with an IL-15Fc nanogel designed to release this cytokine in a local and sustained manner, limiting systemic exposure and thus improving tolerability. The highest dose of PRIME IL-15 administered in the study to date contained approximately three times more IL-15Fc than the maximum tolerated dose of systemically administered IL-15Fc, but produced less than one tenth of the systemic exposure to free IL-15Fc.

"We are encouraged to see both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells infiltrating into solid tumors following the administration of PRIME IL-15. The use of our proprietary IL-15 nanogel technology coupled with antigen-activated T cells supports a favorable safety profile and our ability to increase dosing going forward," said Anthony Coyle, Ph.D., Repertoire’s President of Research and Development. "PRIME IL-15 is the first T cell investigational therapy with a cytokine nanogel payload and represents a novel class of immune medicines, which we will evaluate in a variety of cancer types. We will build on this research and expand Repertoire’s DECODE and DEPLOY platforms for the creation of targeted immune medicines."

About PRIME IL-15

PRIME IL-15 (RPTR-147) is Repertoire’s first investigational therapy, bringing together the company’s DECODE and DEPLOY technologies in an investigational treatment for a variety of solid tumor. While IL-15 is a cytokine known to regulate the activation and proliferation of T cells, systemic administration is hindered by tolerability. PRIME IL-15 is a novel autologous, non-genetically modified multi-clonal T cell product loaded with an IL-15Fc nanogel designed to release IL-15 in a local and sustained manner, limiting systemic exposure and thus improving tolerability. The product, derived from rare peripherally-derived anti-tumor T cell clones, is a repertoire of immune-enhanced T cells primed against a multi-antigen cassette containing tumor associated antigens (TAA), known to be over-expressed in specific tumor types. PRIME T cells stands for Primed Repertoire of Immune Encoded T cells.

InterVenn Biosciences Reports Results on Vista™ : a Multi-Indication Liquid Biopsy Research Panel Built on Glycoproteomics

On November 10, 2020 InterVenn Biosciences reported that its proprietary liquid biopsy glycoproteomic research panel, Vista, has demonstrated multi-indication performance in early cancer detection based on tests run in the company’s Bay Area laboratory (Press release, InterVenn Biosciences, NOV 10, 2020, View Source [SID1234570557]). InterVenn, in collaboration with several large pharma-biotech and diagnostic users of Vista, has been able to repeatedly and reliably generate multivariable glycopeptide classifiers for a range of different forms of cancer with sensitivities and specificities consistently above 90 and as high as 98 percent.

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InterVenn and its research partners have used Vista to demonstrate the power of glycoproteomic profiles as biomarkers for over a dozen different oncology indications, including ovarian, renal, lung, liver, prostate, pancreas, nasopharyngeal, and colorectal cancer, as well as to predict the response to checkpoint-inhibitor treatment. Vista’s application-specific disease classifier panels each consist of a limited number of glycopeptide signatures provide highly targeted readouts with accuracy rates that the "one-size-fits-all approaches" pursued by others have so far generally failed to achieve.

"The push towards personalized medicine and matching patients to the most effective and safest therapy options based on their individual biology– particularly in cancer — has been limited because of our inability to fully understand all the complexities of the patient and the disease," said Aldo Carrascoso, Chief Executive Officer of InterVenn. "The sophisticated, differentiated approach we are taking acknowledges, and masters, the complexity of cancer, and takes the inherent heterogeneity among different malignancies appropriately into account enabling patients and their physicians to jointly make better treatment decisions."

While finding a "pan-cancer" diagnostic test has long been considered the holy grail of cancer screening, the results that have been made available to date have been mixed, generally falling short of the high sensitivity and specificity requirements needed for such screening tests to be clinically useful. Rather than utilizing sequencing technologies, InterVenn has focused its exploratory work on characterizing glycoprotein profiles, arguing that the considerably higher complexity and dynamic range of proteins and their post-translational modifications provide the deep repertoire of analytes that is likely required to yield the resolution needed for highly accurate biomarker panels. Scientists at InterVenn are focused on the glycoproteomic diversity inherent in specific malignancies, as opposed to seeking a "common denominator" that could serve as a generic cancer test.

"The elegance and power of InterVenn’s approach with Vista is that it can be deployed in a highly targeted fashion in individuals at high risk for a particular disease – such as women with BRCA mutations who have a 25-fold risk of ovarian cancer – but that it can also be used to assess the risk for a broad range of malignancies, by determining individual disease-specific risk classifiers of interest from within the entire Vista family. The repertoire of indications accessible through our platform already matches or exceeds that pursued by DNA-based platforms, and is being expanded aggressively," said Klaus Lindpaintner, MD, MPH, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer of InterVenn Biosciences.

InterVenn also recently announced that it has identified marked differences in the glycoproteomic profile of patients who became seriously ill with COVID-19 as compared to individuals who had also been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus but experienced no or minimal symptoms. These differences may shed important new light on the natural history of the disease and may relate to interindividual differences in susceptibility. The AI-enabled glycoproteomic analysis of nearly 100 blood samples was conducted in Intervenn’s South San Francisco lab, with additional studies in complementary COVID-19 patients and other reference cohorts still currently ongoing.

"We are very encouraged by the enthusiasm and eagerness we are encountering from scientists in academia as well as industry for this previously inaccessible layer of biology that our technology has opened up to be interrogated. The types of indications and applications our users present to us are a clear validation of the important role glycoproteomics plays in diagnostics as well as drug development. This supports our mission of applying our technology to improve the lives of patients," said Erwin Estigarribia, Chief Operating Officer of InterVenn.

BiomX to Present at Upcoming November Investor Conferences

On November 10, 2020 BiomX Inc. (NYSE American: PHGE), a clinical stage company developing natural and engineered phage therapies targeting specific pathogenic bacteria, reported that Jonathan Solomon, Chief Executive Officer, will participate in the following upcoming investor conferences (Press release, BiomX, NOV 10, 2020, View Source [SID1234570556]).

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Event: H.C. Wainwright 6th Annual Israel Conference (Virtual)
Date: Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020
Time: 9:30 a.m. EST
Webcast link: BiomX HCW Israel Conference Live Link and Playback

Event: Jefferies 2020 Virtual London Healthcare Conference
Date: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020
Time: 12:00 p.m. EST
Webcast link: BiomX Jefferies London HC Conference Live Link and Playback.

Both live and archived webcasts will also be available in the Events section of the BiomX website at www.biomx.com.

BostonGene and Thomas Jefferson University Announce Research Collaboration

On November 10, 2020 BostonGene Corporation, a biomedical software company committed to defining optimal precision medicine-based therapies for cancer patients, reported a research collaboration with Thomas Jefferson University and the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center – Jefferson Health for a study from the window of opportunity trial of Nivolumab and Tadalafil for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (Press release, BostonGene, NOV 10, 2020, View Source [SID1234570554]).

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The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center – Jefferson Health, a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated clinical cancer center providing cancer care at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a clinical and research enterprise with four advanced care hubs located throughout the Greater Philadelphia regions and staffed by hundreds of oncology researchers and physicians from around the globe.

The research collaboration aims to evaluate the molecular, cellular and immunologic profiles of head and neck cancer patients treated with Nivolumab and Tadalafil. As part of the collaboration, BostonGene will apply its integrated whole exome and whole transcriptome analysis to simultaneously assess the activity of the tumor and tumor microenvironment of patients at distinct disease stages ranging from localized to metastatic disease. The analysis will include the identification of significant somatic alterations, evaluation of gene expression patterns, estimation of tumor heterogeneity, TCR and BCR repertoires and microenvironment classification among other molecular features.

"Leveraging BostonGene’s detailed analysis will allow us to comprehensively assess the molecular profile of head and neck cancer patients treated with Nivolumab and Tadalafil," said Joseph Curry, MD, Member of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center and Associate Professor of Otolaryngology at Thomas Jefferson University. "Using a data analytical approach to evaluate the molecular portrait and tumor microenvironment composition will help us to predict the benefits of the particular combination therapy for each patient."

"We are excited to work with Thomas Jefferson University and the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center – Jefferson Health on this study of patients with head and neck cancer to demonstrate the clinical utility of BostonGene’s platform," said Andrew Feinberg, President and CEO at BostonGene. "The collaboration will validate the use of comprehensive molecular analysis to correlate tumor activity and cellular composition with response to therapy, creating a significant opportunity to improve personalized care for patients with head and neck cancer."

Xilio Therapeutics to Present Data on Tumor-Selective Immunotherapies at the 2020 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting

On November 10, 2020 Xilio Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing potent, tumor-selective immunotherapies for patients with cancer, reported the upcoming presentation of two abstracts featuring preclinical data related to its most advanced product candidates, XTX101 and XTX201 (Press release, Xilio Therapeutics, NOV 10, 2020, View Source [SID1234570553]). The data will be shared at the 35th Annual Meeting of The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) (Free SITC Whitepaper) (SITC 2020) taking place virtually November 9 – 14, 2020.

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The abstract featuring data on XTX201, Xilio’s tumor-selective IL-2, will be shared in a virtual poster viewing session. The abstract featuring data on the tumor-selective aCTLA4 antibody XTX101 will be shared in an oral presentation and in a virtual poster viewing session.

Details on Xilio’s abstracts are as follows:

Abstract #: 568
Abstract Title: XTX201, a protein-engineered IL-2, exhibits tumor-selective activity in mice without peripheral toxicities in non-human primates
Presenting Author: Minjie Zhang, PhD, Senior Scientist, In Vivo Pharmacology at Xilio Therapeutics
Virtual Poster Viewing Session: Thursday, November 12, from 4:50-5:20 p.m. EST and Saturday, November 14, from 1:00-1:30 p.m. EST

Abstract #: 587
Abstract Title: Tumor-activated Fc-engineered anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal antibody, XTX101, demonstrates tumor-selective PD and efficacy in preclinical models
Presenting Oral Presentation Author: Friday November 13, from 4:25-4:40 p.m. EST. Kurt Jenkins, PhD, Principal Scientist, Cell Pharmacology at Xilio Therapeutics
Oral Presentation: Wednesday, November 11, from 5:15-5:45 p.m. EST and Friday, November 13, from 4:40-5:10 p.m. EST
Presenting Poster Session Author: Parker Johnson, PhD, Senior Scientist, Structural Biology at Xilio Therapeutics
Virtual Presentation Viewing Session: Wednesday, November 11, from 5:15-5:45 p.m. EST and Friday, November 13, from 4:40-5:10 p.m. EST

Abstracts can be accessed on the SITC (Free SITC Whitepaper) website once the conference begins on November 9 at 8:00 a.m. EST.