Scientific Platforms

Our Scientific Platforms

For illustrative purposes only. Adaptive and innate cell cycle immune responses within the tumor microenvironment.

Our Scientific Platforms

Our pipeline focuses on novel strategies that leverage the power of the immune system, with a focus on innate immunity.

Our immunotherapy programs designed to investigate the potential of this approach fall under two pillars – innate immunity enhancers and redirected immunity approaches.

Innate Immunity Enhancers

Our innate immunity enhancer programs include investigational immunotherapies that aim to transform and drive immune responses at the tumor interface. Through novel therapeutic approaches targeted at a patient’s immune system, we aim to shift the tumor microenvironment so that immune cells are able to overcome immune suppression and attack cancer cells. One part of the body’s immune response, interferon signaling, utilizes cytokine proteins known as interferons to activate innate and adaptive immune cells. These mechanisms play an important role in our innate immunity enhancer programs, which include:

This novel approach pairs weakened, or attenuated, interferon molecules with specific antibodies. The antibody backbone, which targets a particular protein, is intended to allow for targeted delivery to specific cells, while the activity is fully driven by the interferon. The goal of this approach is to stimulate the immune system to potentially eliminate cancer cells while leaving healthy cells intact.

SUMOylation is a common cellular process that modifies and regulates a variety of immune protein functions, such as DNA repair or gene expression. It is present in a variety of innate and adaptive immune cells, where it can also modulate immune responses. In the context of cancer, increased SUMOylation will weaken the immune response by decreasing the expression of cytokines, such as type I interferon, and allow cancer growth. By inhibiting SUMOylation, macrophages, natural killer (NK) cells and T cells are restimulated, which could potentially reactivate type I interferon signaling and the body’s antitumor immune responses.

STING (selective agonist of STimulator of INterferon Genes) modulation and targeted delivery of STING agonists can influence key interferon signaling pathways and have the potential to drive an immune-mediated, anti-tumor response via multiple innate and adaptive immune mechanisms. In addition, STING agonists have the potential to enhance these anti-tumor effects by relieving immunosuppressive elements in the tumor microenvironment.

Redirected Immunity Approaches

Our redirected immunity programs mobilize immune cells to carry out broad attacks against tumor cells. These immunotherapy programs build upon earlier generations of cancer therapies and aim to address solid tumors in addition to hematologic malignancies. Our redirected immunity programs include:

Cell therapy approaches in oncology involve treating a patient with immune cells that have been optimized to target tumor cells. We are focused on developing allogeneic cell therapies, which can be derived from external sources and serve as a treatment for many patients across multiple platforms that leverage innate immune cells – including an NK cell platform and a gamma delta T (γδT) cell platform. These types of treatments have the potential to be delivered “off-the-shelf” for patients at the time they need therapy and improve upon several aspects of existing cell therapies.

Immune cell engagers are conditional bispecific molecules engineered to specifically activate an immune system attack at the surface of a tumor. We are developing T cell engagers engineered to take advantage of the tumor’s unique microenvironment to drive T cell activation, triggering cell-mediated killing only at the site of the tumor.

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Oncology Pipeline

Discovering and developing innovative therapies to deliver potentially transformative treatments.

Partnership Strategy

We believe the best way to achieve our aspiration to cure cancer is by working together.

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