Download Immune Design Partners with Top Cancer Organizations

June 12, 2013
Immune Design Partners with Top Cancer Organizations
MEDIA RELEASE
IMMUNE DESIGN PARTNERS WITH LEADING CANCER ORGANIZATIONS
TO ADVANCE NOVEL IMMUNOTHERAPY RESEARCH
The Cancer Research Institute, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Immune Design
Form New Collaboration to Accelerate Clinical Testing of Immunotherapies for Cancer
Newswise — June 12, 2013, New York, NY, and Seattle, WA – The Cancer Research Institute (CRI), the Ludwig Institute for
Cancer Research and Immune Design, a biotech company focused on immune-based therapies for cancer and other human
diseases, today announced that they have signed a collaboration agreement to advance cancer immunotherapy research.
Specifically, the partnership will focus on clinical trials to test novel combinations of immunotherapies, including two
investigational drugs from Immune Design’s pipeline.
Significant momentum has been building in the development of effective therapeutic strategies that seek to improve the human
immune system’s ability to recognize and attack cancer. Advances in immunotherapy, reflected through product approvals and
promising clinical data, support the potential for this new class of treatment to significantly impact the treatment paradigm for
cancer patients.
“The collaboration with Immune Design marks the third in a series of CRI and Ludwig partnerships with industry designed to
facilitate the investigation of next generation combination immunotherapies,” said Adam Kolom, managing director of CRI’s nonprofit venture fund, which makes investments to support the costs of innovative immunotherapy clinical trials. “Each of our
partnerships is designed to facilitate access to one or more high-promise immune reagents so that exciting new combination
treatments can be brought to patients and studied by researchers.”
The Ludwig Institute and CRI will conduct studies of cancer immunotherapy combinations through their jointly coordinated CVC
clinical trials network using two investigational drugs that Immune Design will provide from its product pipeline, combined with
other priority agents available to CRI and the Ludwig Institute from their internal portfolios or accessed through additional
industry partnerships. The Immune Design agents include a synthetic toll-like receptor 4 (TLR-4) agonist adjuvant, called GLA
(glucopyranosyl lipid A), and LV305, a novel lentivector-based vaccine product candidate.
The GLA adjuvant is poised to play an important role in the development of effective next generation vaccines for cancer
immunotherapy, where they will be critical for targeting weakly immunogenic tumor antigens in order to overcome various
tolerance mechanisms and facilitate induction of cytotoxic T lymphocytes that can traffic to and lyse malignant cells.
The LV305 vaccine has been specifically engineered to deliver antigen-encoding nucleic acids to dendritic cells in vivo. The
vector directly targets dendritic cells with an antigen and has been demonstrated to elicit unprecedented levels of antigenspecific CD8 T cell expansion after a single injection.
“Different cancer immunotherapies are designed to target distinct and potentially complementary effects on the immune
system,” said Jonathan Skipper, PhD, executive director of technology development at the Ludwig Institute. “Using
combinations of immunotherapies enables us to attack a patient’s cancer on multiple fronts, increasing the likely impact of
therapy and decreasing the chances of immune escape.”
“Cancer immunotherapy has made a great amount of progress recently, but for them to work effectively a strong immune
response is needed,” said Carlos Paya, MD, PhD, chief executive officer at Immune Design. “Our entirely novel technologies
are first in class to drive an effective and robust immune response against cancer for patients whose tumor-specific immune
response is either non-detectable or suboptimal. We are excited to test our technologies in combination with other
immunotherapies.”
Financial terms were not disclosed.
About GLA (glucopyranosyl lipid A)
GLA is a fully synthetic, best-in-class TLR-4 agonist molecular adjuvant that activates dendritic cells by up-regulating key
molecules required for efficient antigen presentation, and stimulates TH1 cytokine production to enhance the immune
response. This novel, propriety vaccine adjuvant has been shown to be safe and well-tolerated in multiple human clinical
studies in over 650 patients.
About LV305
LV305 is a novel lentiviral vector engineered to deliver antigen-encoding nucleic acids directly to dendritic cells in vivo. This
promotes the efficient generation of tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), the primary effector cells required for
effective cancer immunotherapy.
About the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
The Ludwig Institute is an international non-profit organization committed to improving the understanding and control of cancer
through integrated laboratory and clinical discovery. Leveraging its worldwide network of investigators and the ability to
sponsor and conduct its own clinical trials, the Institute is actively engaged in translating its discoveries into applications for
patient benefit. Since its establishment in 1971, the Institute has expended more than $1.5 billion on cancer research. Learn
more at www.licr.org
About the Cancer Research Institute
The Cancer Research Institute (CRI), established in 1953, is the world’s only non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to
transforming cancer patient care by advancing scientific efforts to develop new and effective immune system-based strategies
to prevent, diagnose, treat, and cure cancer. Guided by a world-renowned Scientific Advisory Council that includes three Nobel
laureates and 30 members of the National Academy of Sciences, CRI has invested more than $200 million in support of
research conducted by immunologists and tumor immunologists at the world’s leading medical centers and universities, and
has contributed to many of the key scientific advances that demonstrate the potential for immunotherapy to change the face of
cancer treatment. Learn more at www.cancerresearch.org.
About Immune Design
Immune Design is a privately held clinical stage biotechnology company based in Seattle, WA. Immune Design brings together
some of the world’s leaders in the field of molecular immunology to develop a synergistic platform of next generation vaccines
designed to treat cancer, infectious diseases, allergy and autoimmune disorders. The company employs leading edge
technologies which target dendritic cells for more precise activation of the immune response. A novel lentiviral vector
engineered to deliver antigen-encoding nucleic acids directly to dendritic cells in vivo and a TLR-4 agonist that activates
dendritic cells by up-regulating key molecules for efficient antigen presentation and produces cytokines of the Th1 type to
enhance the immune response. For more information, go to www.immunedesign.com.
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For further information please contact:
•Cancer Research Institute, Brian Brewer, [email protected] or +1-212-688-7515
•Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Rachel Steinhardt, [email protected] or +1-212-450-1582
•Rathbun Communications, Julie Rathbun, [email protected] or +1-206-769-9219