On November 9, 2021 Athenex (NASDAQ: ATNX), a global biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery, development, and commercialization of novel therapies for the treatment of cancer and related conditions, reported a licensing agreement with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), an institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to expand the development of T cell receptor (TCR) based allogeneic natural killer T (NKT) cell and autologous T cell therapeutic products for the treatment of human cancers (Press release, Athenex, NOV 9, 2021, View Source [SID1234594861]).
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Under the terms of the agreement, Athenex is granted worldwide rights to the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of allogeneic NKT products engineered via viral and non-viral means, and autologous T cell therapy products engineered via retrovirus and lentivirus-mediated gene transfer, to express certain TCRs discovered in the laboratory of Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of the Surgery Branch at the NCI. The licensed TCRs recognize unique antigens derived from ‘hotspot’ mutations in p53, KRAS, and EGFR genes shared among multiple patients and tumor types. Athenex plans to engineer the TCRs into its NKT cell platform to develop an allogeneic "off-the-shelf" approach for solid tumor treatment.
"We are very pleased to have entered this licensing agreement that covers these important T cell receptors. KRAS and p53 are the most commonly mutated genes in epithelial cancers, including lung and colorectal cancers (1)," said Daniel Lang, M.D., President, Athenex Cell Therapy, Vice President, Corporate Development and Communication. "By expressing these TCRs in our NKT cell platform, we are able to potentially expand beyond hematologic malignancies into solid tumors, and therefore expand the market by over one hundred thousand patients in the U.S. annually. Licensing these clinically important TCRs builds on the foundation we started by acquiring Kuur Therapeutics, and we believe further advances our objectives to be one of the leaders in cell therapy."