Anocca AB has raised SEK 440 million ($46 million) from Mellby Gård, a Swedish investment group, and existing shareholders to conduct a programme of trials of T cell immunotherapies for pancreatic cancer. The trials will investigate multiple approaches for targeting mutations in the KRAS gene which is involved in the regulation of cell division. KRAS mutations are drivers of pancreatic cancer, as well as lung and colorectal cancers.
Anocca was founded in 2014 as a platform company to investigate T cell biology. Announced on 18 August, the new funding will be the first clinical test of this technology which uses programmable human cells to recreate and manipulate T cell immunity. The products are T cell receptor T cell therapies (TCR-Ts) which are manufactured using non-viral gene editing technology.
Called VIDAR-1, the programme has been designed as a multi-product umbrella study in which up to 20 patients will be enrolled per product. Phase 1 is currently underway at eight sites in four countries with additional countries and sites in Phase 2. Patients will be enrolled if they have an HLA or KRAS mutation matching an available product.
According to the World Journal of Oncology, two specific mutations of KRAS affect around 90% of patients with pancreatic cancer, a disease whose five-year survival rate is less than 10%.
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