This week's Lab Notes has items on a gastric cancer discovery, a bio-manufacturing deal, a positive update on an experimental cancer therapy and more.
Here's the roundup:
Wistar Institute
Scientists led by a researcher at The Wistar Institute have discovered a potential target for gastric cancers associated with Epstein-Barr Virus.
Italo Tempera, an associate professor in the gene expression and regulation program at Wistar's Caplan Cancer Center, led the research team that discovered the target: an epigenetically active compound called decitabine. The researchers published their study results in the journal mBio.
"What we have identified is essentially a self-destruct button within this kind of cancer, and our paper shows that we figured out how to press that self-destruct button," Tempera said. "Normally, a latent virus that reactivates and starts to kill cells is a bad thing. But by switching that viral lytic process back on in these cancer cells by using epigenetic signaling, we're effectively getting the virus to kill the cancer cells that it's responsible for in the first place."
The research team includes scientists from The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, The Coriell Institute for Medical Research in Camden and Brigham and Women's Hospital of Harvard Medical School in Boston. Their work is being supported by a National Institute of Health grant.
Cabaletta Bio
The Philadelphia cell therapy company is expanded its manufacturing agreement with WuXi Advanced Therapies to include production of CABA-201, which is being developed by Cabaletta (NASDAQ: CABA) for multiple autoimmune disorders.
Gwendolyn Binder, the company's president of science and technology, said Cabaletta has had a successful collaboration with WuXi ATU — a contract development and manufacturing organization based in China with operations at the Philadelphia Navy Yard — during the past two years.
“WuXi ATU’s dedicated production capacity for CABA-201 supports our planned global expansion and commercial preparedness efforts, and will enable us to dose patients in multiple clinical trials with separate parallel cohorts," Binder said in a statement.
Cabaletta previously announced separate phase 1/2 clinical trials testing CABA-201 as a treatment for systemic lupus erythematosus and idiopathic inflammatory myopathies.
Financial terms of the expanded partnership were not disclosed.
Geneos Therapeutics
The Plymouth Meeting biotherapeutics company reported four additional patients receiving its lead personalized therapeutic cancer vaccine have achieved a complete molecular response, meaning all signs of cancer of their have disappeared.
Genos previously reported three patients in the phase 1/2 study had achieved that response after receiving the company's mRNA-based vaccine.
Niranjan Sardesai, CEO of Geneos, said he believes the data should put an end to a misconception that personalized therapeutic vaccines may only be effective in adjuvant settings to prevent cancer recurrence in patients who have had surgery to remove a tumor.
"Some are suggesting [personalized therapeutic vaccines may be] ineffective at reducing advanced, unresectable, and metastatic tumors.” Sardesai said. “We feel these latest data should set the record straight. Cancer vaccines based on our DNA vaccine platform are showing complete responses in patients with late-stage, advanced cancer."
The Geneos study involves patients with unresectable or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of liver cancer. The company’s approach, using its proprietary GT-EPIC platform, is to target neoantigens — abnormal mutations produced by cancer cells — from individual patient tumors to develop novel and uniquely personalized treatments for cancer.
Quick Hits
Verismo Therapeutics of Philadelphia entered into a licensing agreement with the University of Pennsylvania for worldwide exclusive rights for two newly discovered anti-CD19 binders. The newly discovered binders are a result of the sponsored research agreement between Verismo and the University of Pennsylvania that was executed in 2022. Verismo plans to use one of these binders with its KIR-CAR T cell immunotherapy therapeutic for blood cancer, while reserving both binders for potential future partnering.… Malvern biotechnology company Baudax Bio (NASDAQ: BXRX) raised $1.9 million in a stock sale to advance its new drug candidates. The company sold just more than 2 million shares of its common stock at 56 cents a share and nearly 1.4 million shares of pre-funded warrants for 55 cents per warrant. Baudax Bo intends to use the net proceeds from the offerings for pipeline development activities and general corporate purposes. The company's focus is on developing T cell receptor therapies along with neuromuscular blocking agents and associated reversal agents.… Amicus Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FOLD) appointed Simon Harford as its new CFO. Daphne Quimi, the Philadelphia biotechnology company's previous CFO, is retiring and will remain an Amicus employee through the end of the year to help with the transition. Harford was most recently CFO of Boston-based biotech Albireo Pharma Inc., a rare pediatric liver disease company, until its sale to Ipsen. Prior to that, he was CFO at Parexel International Corp., a global clinical research organization.
