Intensity Therapeutics, Inc. Awarded Cooperative Research and Development Agreement from the National Cancer Institute
- Research program will use Intensity’s in situ chemovaccination technology
WESTPORT, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Intensity Therapeutics, Inc. (private) announced today that the Company established a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA), with the National Institute of Health’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) Vaccine Branch.
Intensity Therapeutics was awarded the CRADA by the NCI to study the efficacy and mechanism of action of Intensity’s in situ chemovaccination products using in vivo models of cancer. Intensity is sponsoring a portion of the research program. The CRADA will explore the processes by which Intensity’s products activate immune responses against cancer and possible synergy of the Company’s products with a novel class of NKT cell agonists developed by the NCI. It is hypothesized that the dying cancer cells induced by Intensity’s formulations serve as an endogenous vaccine to induce anti-tumor immune responses that may be amplified with an NCI immune-enhancer.
According to Jay A. Berzofsky, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of the Vaccine Branch and Head of the Molecular Immunogenetics and Vaccine Research Section at the NCI, Intensity’s in vivo tumor regression and immune activation data generated to date are impressive.
“We are pleased to be collaborating with the world’s leading cancer research organization, the National Cancer Institute,” said Lewis H. Bender, President and CEO of Intensity Therapeutics. “Dr. Jay Berzofsky is one of the foremost scientists in the field of cancer immunology. It is an honor for Intensity Therapeutics to be collaborating with him and his department’s distinguished group of scientists, including Dr. Masaki Terabe, the Deputy Section Head, who is leading the research on NCI’s immune-enhancer.”
About the Public Health Service CRADA program
The CRADA is one of the principal mechanisms used by federal labs to engage in collaborative efforts with non-federal partners to achieve goals of technology transfer. It intended to be a flexible mechanism that can be adapted to a variety of types of collaborative efforts between federal and non-federal organizations.
About the Vaccine Branch of the NCI
The Molecular Immunogenetics & Vaccine Research Section (Berzofsky lab) within the Vaccine Branch studies, in animals and clinical trials, the immunology of antigen-specific T cell activation and regulation, and translation to strategies for design of vaccines for HIV, cancer, and viruses that cause cancer. Approaches include use of synergistic combinations of cytokines and TLR ligands in vaccines, approaches to increase CTL avidity, analysis of a new NKT cell immunoregulatory axis and regulatory circuit that inhibits tumor immunity and vaccine-induced immune responses against cancer and its interactions with other regulatory mechanisms and blockade of these to improve vaccine efficacy, strategies to induce mucosal immunity and mechanisms of mucosal trafficking and homing, epitope enhancement by sequence modification, and development of new cancer vaccines as well as AIDS vaccine strategies. Several basic discoveries are currently being translated into clinical trials.
About Intensity Therapeutics, Inc.
Intensity Therapeutics, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company whose mission is to greatly extend the lives of patients with solid tumor cancers. Intensity Therapeutics is pioneering a new approach to treat cancer referred to as in situ chemovaccination. The Company creates novel, proprietary formulations of proven chemotherapy drugs. These products, when injected directly into tumors result in significantly greater tumor growth inhibition and increased survival compared to conventionally delivered chemotherapy. The technology attenuates (kills a tumor) in a manner that allows for the adaptive immune system to recognize the cancer to attack untreated tumors and prevent disease recurrence. Further information can be found at www.intensitytherapeutics.com.
Media & Investors:
Lewis Bender, 203-682-2434
President &
CEO
lbender@intensitytherapeutics.com
Source: Intensity Therapeutics, Inc.
Released May 28, 2014