Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, or nearly one in six deaths. The most common cancers are breast, lung, colon and rectum and prostate cancers.

The Need

Current cancer treatments mainly rely on chemotherapy, radiation, surgery and bone marrow transplantation. However, these can be associated with severe side effects, and in some cases the cancer does not respond to the treatments. Thus, there is an urgent need for new therapeutics that are safe and effective.

The Technology

Our groundbreaking technology is a polypeptide-based cancer immunotherapy that targets tumor-associated antigens (TAA) and the NKG2D receptor expressed by cytotoxic T cells, gamma-delta T cells, natural killer (NK) cells, and NKT cells, which together can be generally referred to as "killer cells." The technology is a bi-specific T-cell engager or bi-specific killer cell engager (BiTE and BiKE) are cancer immunotherapies that acts as a bridge between cancer cells and killer cells leading to targeted killing of cancer cells.

Commercial Applications

This technology can be used for GBM and other cancers for which limited treatment options exist.

Benefits/Advantages

The technology could reduce and/or eliminate GBM and metastasized cancer cells in other areas of the body or combined with the standard of care. In addition, initial data show that after treatment with the drug, it improves survival in animal models of GBM.