Novel approach to immunotherapy
Immunotherapy is a powerful way to treat cancer, using immune cells modulated in a laboratory to boost patients’ immune systems and empower the body to find and destroy cancer cells. At Cyteph, our approach is novel - underpinned by world-class technology, with platform reach and potential.
Cytomegalovirus (CMV)
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a common virus that belongs to the herpesvirus family. It is estimated that up to 70% of adults have been infected with the virus, which can remain latent in the body for life. CMV is commonly found in many different types of tumours, including difficult-to-treat cancers like glioblastoma.
Allogeneic T cell therapy
Cyteph leverages the power of CMV-specific T cells as the basis of its allogeneic cell therapies and CAR T platform. CMV-specific T cells have a natural ability to recognise and attack virus-infected cells, including cancer cells, making them an advantageous choice for immunotherapy. CMV-specific T cells are particularly effective at targeting and destroying cancer cells because they can specifically recognise viral antigens expressed by the cancer cells.
Why Cyteph is unique: Allogeneic T cell therapy
Cyteph’s appraoch is to use allogeneic CMV-specific T cells derived from seropositive healthy donors. These T cells are manufactured using proprietary CMV peptide epitopes, leading to a highly specific and well-characterised drug product. The products can then be stored as a cell bank and provided to patients when required. Cyteph’s proprietary HLA matching algorithm is specifically designed to identify the appropriate T cell products for patients.
Scalability, matters
Cyteph has an established manufacturing partnership for its T cell therapies with QGen Cell Therapeutics - a cell manufacturing facility operated by respected medical research institute and Cyteph’s foundational partner, QIMR Berghofer.
This is an important relationship to support essential manufacturing for Cyteph’s imminent clinical trial program.
The use of allogeneic cells as the basis for Cyteph’s therapies allows for the development of off-the-shelf therapies that can be manufactured on a large scale, eliminating the need for costly and time-consuming T cell collection and engineering for each individual patient - as is the case for autologous therapies.
Additionally, the use of allogeneic T cells can provide greater consistency and quality control in the manufacturing process.
Cyt-ATTAC platform
Cyteph’s dual targeting, allogeneic CAR-T platform, Cyt-ATTAC (Cytomegalovirus - Allogeneic Tumor TArgeting Car T), is designed to specifically target and eliminate cancer cells.
CYT-AT1 is the first asset in development using the Cyt-ATTAC platform - learn more here.
The allogeneic CMV T cells are the foundation of the CAR T delivery platform allowing the generation of multiple dual-targeting CAR T products. These cells have several advantages over traditional CAR T cells.
Key advantages and attributes
Off-the shelf product
One healthy donor can produce hundreds of doses of product which can be stored so patients are treated without delay.
Dual targeting
CMV T cells can be armed with any cancer-specific CAR or TCR allowing targeting of cancer cells through TCR and CAR engagement.
Traffic to brain
In the autologous clinical trials in GBM patients the cells trafficked to the brain and were found in GBM tumours.
Enhanced persistence
Allogeneic CMV-specific T cells can persist in the body providing sustained anti-tumour effects.
Potent effector cells
CMV-specific T cells are particularly effective at targeting and destroying virus-infected and malignant cells because they are primed in the body as killer T cells which rapidly migrate and penetrate deep into diseased tissues.
HLA matching
Cyteph’s proprietary software matches patients to specific products.
Safe
2 phase 1 trials in GBM were completed with autologous CMV-specific T cells without presence of GVHD.
