Oncimmune inks research deal with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Immunodiagnostics group Oncimmune has signed an autoantibody profiling contract with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, based in Boston, Massachusetts, it announced on Friday.

The AIM-traded firm described Dana-Farber, a clinical affiliate and research institute of Harvard Medical School, as a “world-leading” cancer research organisation and hospital, with more than 1,100 therapeutic and non-therapeutic clinical trials in progress.

Under the agreement, Oncimmune would be using its proprietary biomarker discovery engine ‘SeroTag’ to identify autoantibodies that could be predictive of patient response or associated with resistance to checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) and chemotherapy used in Dana-Farber-led studies or therapy using ‘atezolizumab’, ‘nivolumab’, ‘pembrolizumab’, ‘durvalumab’, and cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

In addition, SeroTag would be used for identifying autoantibodies that could be predictive of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) in response treatment.

The project was scheduled to be completed by the end of 2021.

“We are delighted to be partnering with such a prestigious organisation as Dana-Farber on the use of multiple CPI assets in this important oncology trial and leveraging the power of our autoantibody biomarker profiling technology,” said chief executive officer Dr Adam Hill.

“As autoantibodies continue to be recognised as a key biomarker class that aid in the understanding of interactions between cancer and the immune system, the ‘ImmunoINSIGHTS’ platform is becoming increasingly instrumental in studies for a wide range of cancer indications and therapy classes.”

At 0857 BST, shares in Oncimmune Holdings were up 6.47% at 181p.