Intrexon Corp. signed a cooperative research and development agreement with NCI for the development of adoptive T cell therapies utilizing the RheoSwitch Therapeutic System platform for the treatment of solid tumor malignancies.
The CRADA’s principal goal is to develop adoptive cell transfer-based immunotherapies using NCI proprietary methods for the identification of autologous peripheral blood lymphocytes possessing naturally occurring anti-tumor activity combined with Intrexon’s RTS gene switch for introducing spatially and temporally controlled interleukin-12 expression.
RTS enables transcriptional regulation of a wide variety of therapeutic genes upon dosing of an oral activator ligand veledimex, including in vivo modulation of IL-12 gene expression with a broad dynamic range.
As the first gene switch employed in the clinic to enable dose-dependent cytokine expression and offer the ability to administer or withdraw veledimex for continued treatment cycles, the RheoSwitch platform provides the opportunity to tailor solutions for patient-specific therapeutic effects. Lead anti-tumor ACT/PBL/IL-12 cell therapy candidates will then be clinically evaluated by NCI in patients with metastatic cancer.
Under the CRADA, Steven Rosenberg, chief of the surgery branch in the Center for Cancer Research at the NCI, will be the principal investigator for the study, and Gregory Frost, senior vice president and head of Intrexon’s Health Sector, will serve as co-investigator.
