Marker Therapeutics Inc (MRKR)

[poods]

Possibly a major advance. If it can be shown that the shared cancer antigens are clinically valid targets with our Multi-TAA platform, it will be a big step in cancer medicine. Seems like we already have pretty good evidence that's the case with the hematologic malignancies and we'll likely find out if that is also the case for solid tumors next week. However, cancers can escape by down regulating MHC antigens, which makes them resistant to t-cell attack. This has been shown to happen in melanoma treated with and not responding checkpoint blockade, so more than one strategy is needed. NK cells kill tumors cells that don't express MHC, so that is one strategy. Oncolytic virus might also be more effective against tumors that don't express MHC, since presenting viral peptides on MHC/HLA is an important defense mechanism against spread of virus to other cells.
MHC down regulation aside, I think there is a decent chance MRKR is on to something important but we'll know more very soon.