Elicera Therapeutics enters a preclinical collaboration agreement with China Medical University for the development of ELC-201
Gothenburg, June 11, 2024 – Elicera Therapeutics AB (publ), a clinical stage cell and gene therapy company developing next generation cancer treatments based on CAR T-cell therapies and oncolytic viruses, armed with its proprietary commercially available technology platform iTANK, announces today that the company has entered a research collaboration with Fourth Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University (CMU4). Through this agreement, the efficacy of the oncolytic virus ELC-201 will be evaluated in preclinical proof-of-concept studies across multiple solid tumor indications.
According to the collaboration agreement with CMU4, the university, under the leadership of Dr. Li Xuexin, Director of the Biomedical Innovation Center, will have access to ELC-201 to conduct preclinical proof-of-concept studies in organoids – cell collections that have an organ-like structure – derived from cancer patients. The studies aim to evaluate both the treatment efficacy and the safety profile of ELC-201 in several solid tumor types, including pancreatic cancer (PDAC), gastric cancer (GI), triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMBIC). The treatment efficacy will be based, among other things, on the degree of tumor cell death and the activation of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, which will be measured using a variety of analytical methods. The researchers at China Medical University have the right to publish the results in the form of scientific articles, while Elicera Therapeutics has the right to use the data in the company’s internal project development as well as for commercialization activities, including licensing agreements.
Elicera Therapeutics is developing ELC-201, an iTANK-armed oncolytic virus that has the ability to seek out and selectively infect cancer cells. After ELC-201 infects a cancer cell, the virus reproduces to the extent that the cell membrane ruptures and the cancer cell dies. Concurrently, the iTANK molecule NAP is released, which initiates a broad activation of the body’s immune response against the entire tumor. The project is in preclinical development phase and is being evaluated against a range of different tumor targets.
“We are very pleased to have been able to establish yet another scientific collaboration to advance the development of our unique therapies. ELC-201 is an oncolytic virus that specifically infects and kills cancer cells. By arming the virus with iTANK, we also create the possibility for broad immunological activation against nearby cancer cells that the virus would not otherwise have identified. Since ELC-201 has the potential to treat many different types of solid tumors, we find this collaboration particularly interesting as we now have the opportunity to confirm the candidate’s broad potential across multiple cancer indications. We look forward to taking part in the results from the proof-of-concept studies and leveraging these in the further development of ELC-201,” says Jamal El-Mosleh, CEO of Elicera Therapeutics.
