NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[jondoeuk]

How could targeting neoantigens be better than DCVax which targets all the antigens?

T-cells against oncofetal, cancer-testis, or certain other antigens lack the required affinity and/or specificity to be effective. This is why ADAP (and some other companies) engineer TCRs.

Short answer is, I don’t think it is a better approach than DCVax. But T-cell treatments have been all the rage since the CAR-T treatments Kymriah and Yescarta were approved in 2017, and there is a general belief that T-cell therapy is more effective than a dendritic cell therapy, which hasn’t been proven in clinical trials, or commercially approved (yet). (well other than Provenge and exwannabe’s favorite - Apceden)

In Q4, ADAP should file a BLA for afami-cel [1]. Its first next-gen therapy has shown encouraging activity outside of certain types of STS [2]. A registration-directed PhII testing that is ongoing in esophageal and esophagogastric junction. Another will start in ovarian this year as well. Also, they will test it in combo with an anti-PD-1 and plan on moving an enhanced version forward [3] (both PhI basket trials).

Refs:
1 https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/11/11/2332690/35803/en/Adaptimmune-Reports-Positive-Results-from-its-Pivotal-SPEARHEAD-1-Trial-in-Patients-with-Synovial-Sarcoma-and-MRCLS-at-CTOS.html
2 https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/09/13/2295608/35803/en/Adaptimmune-Announces-Clinical-Responses-across-Five-Solid-Tumor-Indications-with-an-Overall-Response-Rate-of-36-and-Promising-Early-Durability-from-its-Next-Generation-SURPASS-Tri.html
3 https://aacrjournals.org/mct/article-abstract/21/1/138/675143/Enhanced-Antitumor-Responses-of-Tumor-Antigen