On November 4, 2025 Dispatch Bio, a biotechnology company developing a universal treatment for solid tumors, reported preclinical data supporting its first therapeutic program planned to enter the clinic, DISP-10, and its first-in-class Flare platform, at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) (Free SITC Whitepaper) 2025 Annual Meeting.
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Immunotherapies have had limited success in solid tumors due to the lack of tumor-specific targets and a profoundly immunosuppressive microenvironment. Dispatch’s Flare platform addresses these barriers by systemically delivering a tumor-specific virus that paints a universal synthetic antigen (Flare) on tumor cells, enabling precise recognition by T cells, while reshaping the tumor microenvironment to support immune activity. Data presented at SITC (Free SITC Whitepaper) (Abstract 394) demonstrate strong and consistent tumor labeling, iterative viral amplification and tumor cell clearance across multiple epithelial tumor models.
"These data show that delivering engineered targets specifically to tumor cells allows us to control antigen specificity, while also reprogramming the tumor microenvironment," said Lex Johnson, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Platform Officer. "We are excited to start with CAR T as our first program, and because the Flare approach is modular and not restricted to CAR T cells, it can be extended across multiple immunotherapy modalities."
The company also presented preclinical findings from DISP-10, its first therapeutic candidate (Abstract 393). DISP-10 pairs DV-10, a tumor-targeted virus expressing a modified BCMA antigen (dBCMA) and the immune-stimulatory cytokine IL-18 and chemokine CXCL9, with a clinically validated BCMA-directed CAR T. The viral component installs the target and drives local immune activation, enabling robust CAR T function in solid tumors. DISP-10 demonstrated potent anti-tumor responses in numerous in vitro and in vivo models, with no activity observed in healthy cells. Dispatch plans to initiate a first-in-human Phase 1 study in 2026 to evaluate DISP-10 across multiple solid tumor types.
"DISP-10 creates the right biological context for CAR T cells to function in solid tumors," said Barbra Sasu, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer. "The consistency of activity seen with various BCMA-targeted therapies across tumor models gives us confidence in its clinical potential."
(Press release, Dispatch Bio, NOV 4, 2025, View Source [SID1234659405])