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By:Jacqueline Fock, Investment Analyst, Life Sciences 

Today is World Cancer Day. And after a year of news dominated by the emergence and spread of Covid-19 around the globe, it is important to remember that medical care for other diseases has had to continue in one form or another. Not least of these is cancer, which, according to the WHO, is the second leading cause of deaths globally. With a myriad of types, causes, and treatments, there is plenty of potential for improvements.

This World Cancer Day, we would like to highlight some IP Group portfolio companies who have continued to work on new ways to detect and treat different cancers.

Artios

Throughout our lives, our DNA is at risk of being damaged, which can cause genetic alterations that result in diseases. This damage can be caused by any number of things (such as UV light from the sun) and our bodies have processes to find and repair this damage called the DNA Damage Response (DDR).

When cancer develops, cancer cells often lose the ability to repair DNA damage effectively. This means that in cancer cells, damage to DNA can go undetected, and DNA mutations can accumulate. To try and overcome this problem, cancer cells can become very dependent on certain DDR pathways to survive.

Artios is developing drugs that target these DDR pathways to weaken and kill cancer cells. These medicines have the potential to provide novel, life-extending treatments without the risk of major side-effects. The company has entered several collaborations to develop clinical candidates, including with industry leader Merck.

Inivata

Accurate and timely cancer diagnosis is key for optimal cancer care. The current method, tissue biopsies, involve removing small amounts of tumour tissue from the patient, sometimes surgically. Besides often being an invasive procedure, tissue biopsies are expensive and do not provide information on potential cancer metastases.

Inivata has developed a technology to enable cancer detection and diagnosis from a small blood sample, also called a liquid biopsy. Liquid biopsies work by detecting and analysing fragment of DNA that were shed by tumours known as circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) with high sensitivity and speed.

The company’s first product, InVisionFirst®-Lung,for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is already being used to help doctors make decisions on which best treatment to give their cancer patient.

Inivata’s second product, RaDaR™, is an exceptionally sensitive liquid biopsy test that can detect the recurrence of cancers months earlier than standard tests.

Crescendo Biologics

The human body is able to fight off all kinds of disease, such as viruses, bacteria, and cancer. Our immune systems are usually able to detect and destroy cancerous cells as they emerge. Tumours occur when cancer cells gain the ability to disguise themselves and evade the immune system.

Leveraging the body’s immune response to combat cancer is the focus of a burgeoning field of research called immuno-oncology.

Crescendo’s Humabody® platform technology produces “antibody-like” proteins that can bind specifically to tumours and engage the body’s immune system to attack and destroy the cancerous cells.

This targeted approach to specifically kill tumour cells gives a potent anti-cancer effect but avoids the negative side effects commonly associated with conventional chemotherapy.

Crescendo’s lead programme is for hard-to-treat cancers, such as prostate cancer. It also has several collaborations with partners including Cancer Research UK and Japanese pharma company Takeda.

Kuur Therapeutics

Keeping with immune-oncology, Kuur Therapeutics is engineering natural killer T (NKT) cells, a type of immune cell, to treat cancer. These NKT cells are engineered to have a targeting molecule, called CAR, that helps the NKT cells recognise and directly kill cancer cells. Kuur’s CAR-NKT cells are designed to stick around after the patient receives treatment to not only have an immediate anti-cancer effect but also long-term benefit. Kuur’s novel approach also allows for the cell therapy to be used ‘off-the-shelf’, ready for administration when needed.

Kuur took its therapies into clinical trials in 2020, the first “off-the-shelf” CAR-NKT cell therapy to be tested in patients. Its pipeline includes potential treatments for cancers in the brain, liver, and blood.

PsiOxus

PsiOxus is developing a gene therapy for cancer with its T-SIGn® technology. Based on the company’s oncolytic (“cancer destroying”) virus, T-SIGn® viruses are engineered to infect cancer cells only, directly killing as well as alerting the immune system to the tumour. T-SIGn® viruses can also deliver genes that instruct the cancer cells to produce molecules which engages the body’s immune system to destroy the tumour, effectively turning the cancer against itself.

PsiOxus has begun clinical trials, making it a leader in the development and use of tumour-specific viruses armed with multiple immune-engaging genes in cancer patients.

CARISMA Therapeutics

Solid tumours present a unique set of challenges for anyone developing new therapies. As a large mass of cancer cells, the tumour can adapt the environment both within and around it. This can help it survive in any number of ways, such as eliminating non-cancer cells, fooling the body into supplying it with nutrients, or suppressing the immune system so that it’s not attacked.

Like Kuur, above, CARISMA Therapeutics engineers immune cells to target cancers using CAR proteins. The key difference is that CARISMA is engineering macrophages, a different immune cell, for use in therapies. The company’s CAR-M cells are being developed to successfully target solid tumours and disrupt the environment that makes their survival easier. In addition, as macrophages, CAR-M can recruit other immune cells in the body to help find and destroy cancer cells.

CARISMA’s CT-0508 lead product has been primed to detect HER2—a marker present in breast and ovarian cancers, among many others—and the company has announced plans for a Phase I clinical trial.

Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ sequencing instruments have a wide variety of applications including in cancer research. With the platform’s real time results, researchers and clinicians can identify specific mutations as well as analyse a cancer’s complete genetic and epigenetic profile. Find out more here.