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Consortium sought towards Horizon Health around combination therapy of cancers

Summary

Profile Type
  • Technology offer
POD Reference
TOGB20250516008
Term of Validity
16 May 2025 - 16 May 2026
Company's Country
  • United Kingdom
Type of partnership
  • Research and development cooperation agreement
Targeted Countries
  • All countries
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General information

Short Summary
A UK company has demonstrated reprogramming monocytes aided by their proprietary protein crystals. The resulting constitutive expression of cytokines supports CAR-T therapy in solid tumours. Organisations preparing proposals involving checkpoint inhibitors or CAR-T cells are sought for research cooperation.
Full Description
CAR-T cells are not effective in solid tumours. One of the reasons for this is an immunosuppressive environment created by cancer’s ability to reduce immunostimulatory cytokine release from monocytes. Reprogramming monocytes to constitutively express cytokines rescues CD8+T cells but using lentiviruses to reprogram monocytes is costly and inefficient.
A UK biotech business has demonstrated that their proprietary micron-scale protein crystals are efficiently phagocytosed to reprogramme monocytes. Please see the attached pdf flyer for details. The progeny monocytes constitutively secrete bioactive cytokines. In vivo proof of concept studies demonstrated enhanced CD8+ T cell activity, slowed tumour growth and improved survival.
The UK company seeks consortia under development targeting these calls:
HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-TOOL-02: Advancing cell secretome-based therapies
HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-TOOL-05: Boosting the translation of biotech research into innovative health therapies
The company is not seeking to be the lead of the consortium.
They are seeking organisations with animal models for combination therapy of cancer but also other diseases where reprogramming of monocytes would be advantageous.
Advantages and Innovations
The polyhedron delivery system alters the entire production process and the stability profile for growth factors.
It is a first proven sustained reprogramming case for monocytes.
Stage of Development
  • Lab tested
Sustainable Development Goals
  • Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being
IPR status
  • IPR granted
IPR notes
Patents granted in EU, China, Japan, pending in the US.

Partner Sought

Expected Role of a Partner
Type of partner sought: industry, academia, government.
Specific are of partner sought: developers of combination therapies targeting the Horizon calls for secretome-based therapies or novel health therapies more broadly.
Role of partner sought: consortium building towards Horizon, with a focus on finding a suitable lead.
Type and Size of Partner
  • SME <=10
  • SME 11-49
  • SME 50 - 249
  • Big company
  • R&D Institution
  • University
  • Other
Type of partnership
  • Research and development cooperation agreement

Dissemination

Technology keywords
  • 06002002 - Cellular and Molecular Biology
  • 06002004 - Protein Engineering
Market keywords
  • 05003006 - Other therapeutic (including defibrillators)
  • 05006 - Anatomy, Pathology, Immunology, Physiology
Targeted countries
  • All countries

Files

One page flyer