On March 8, 2022 SQZ Biotechnologies Company (NYSE: SQZ), focused on unlocking the full potential of cell therapies for multiple therapeutic areas, reported that it will present new preclinical findings on the company’s enhanced antigen presenting cell (eAPC) platform at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting on April 8-13, 2022 in New Orleans, Louisiana (Press release, SQZ Biotech, MAR 8, 2022, View Source [SID1234609717]). The new eAPC work demonstrates the company’s Cell Squeeze platform’s ability to deliver multiple mRNA simultaneously into important immune cells – monocytes, B cells, T cells, and NK cells – generating eAPCs with specific antigens and costimulatory factors that are designed to drive strong CD8 T cell responses against targeted diseases.
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"By simultaneously engineering the three fundamental signals involved with T cell activation, SQZ eAPCs can potentially drive powerful, targeted immune responses against a variety of diseases," said Howard Bernstein, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at SQZ Biotechnologies. "Our preclinical data at AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) demonstrates that our eAPCs can significantly enhance CD8 T cell responses to a variety of disease antigens – including Cytomegalovirus, Influenza, and Human Papillomavirus. The versatility of our approach has the potential to further enable rapid evolution of the platform for a variety of diseases by using mRNA to encode other antigens or T cell activation signals."
In January, the FDA gave IND clearance for SQZ-eAPC-HPV, the company’s first eAPC therapeutic candidate, for use in patients who have HPV16+ solid tumors. SQZ eAPCs are intended to build on the promising preliminary monotherapy results from our SQZ APC candidate by expanding the addressable patient population and directly incorporating combination-like functionality.
In addition to the new eAPC preclinincal data, a Trial in Progress poster presentation of the ENVOY-001 Phase 1/2 clinical trial will be delivered by Victoria Villaflor, M.D., City of Hope Medical Center. The presentation will summarize the ENVOY-001 study design of SQZ-AAC-HPV, the company’s first AAC clinical candidate being investigated in patients with HPV16+ recurrant, locally advanced, or metastatic solid tumors.
AACR eAPC Poster
Title: Co-delivery of antigen-encoding mRNA and signal 2/3 mRNAs to PBMCs by CellSqueeze technology generates SQZ eAPCs that prime CD8 T cells in humanized mouse model
Presenter: Scott Loughhead, PhD, SQZ Biotechnologies
Session Date and Time: Tuesday Apr 12, 2022 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Poster Board Number: 19
Abstract Number: 2853
AACR Trial in Progress Presentation
Title: ENVOY-001: A phase 1, multicenter, open-label study of SQZ-AAC-HPV as monotherapy and in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors in HLA-A*02+ patients with HPV16+ recurrent, locally advanced, or metastatic solid tumors.
Presenter: Victoria M. Villaflor, MD, City of Hope Medical Center
Session Date and Time: Wednesday, April 13 from 9:00 am – 12:30 pm ET
Poster Section: 35
Abstract Number: 7645
About SQZ-eAPC-HPV
SQZ Enhanced Antigen Presenting Cells (eAPC) are derived from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), which are primarily composed of monocytes, T cells, B cells, and NK cells, and engineered with various mRNA encoding for multiple target antigens and immuno-stimulatory signals, including CD86 and membrane bound IL-2 and IL-12. SQZ-eAPC-HPV is the company’s first eAPC clinical candidate, and it is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial (COMMANDER-001) for the treatment of HPV16+ advanced or metastatic solid tumors. The investigational candidate is being studied as a monotherapy and in combination with an immune checkpoint inhibitor.
About SQZ-AAC-HPV
SQZ Activating Antigen Carriers (AACs) are designed to transport tumor-specific antigens and adjuvant using engineered red blood cells (RBCs) to a patient’s own professional antigen presenting cells (APCs). The APCs can then activate CD8 killer T cells that travel to tumor sites and attack specific diseased cells. SQZ-AAC-HPV is the company’s first AAC clinical candidate, and it is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial (ENVOY-001 or SQZ-AAC-HPV-101) for the treatment of HPV16+ advanced or metastatic solid tumors. The investigational candidate is being studied as a monotherapy and in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors.
About Human Papillomavirus Positive Cancers
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the most common viruses worldwide and certain strains persist for many years leading to cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in the United States HPV+ tumors represent 3% of all cancers in women and 2% of all cancers in men, resulting in over 39,000 new cases of HPV+ tumors every year. HPV infection is larger outside of the U.S., and according to the International Journal of Cancer HPV+ tumors account for 4.5% of all cancers worldwide, resulting in approximately 630,000 new cases every year. According to the CDC, HPV infection plays a significant role in the formation of more than 90% of anal and cervical cancers, and most cases of vaginal (75%), oropharyngeal (70%), vulval (70%) and penile (60%) cancers.