Selecta
Biosciences, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel
drugs that use immune-modulating nanomedicines based on Synthetic
Vaccine Particles (SVP™), announced today that it has been awarded a
$3.2 million grant from Skolkovo
Foundation in support of Selecta’s program to develop an SVP
immunotherapy to treat cancers caused by infections with Human Papilloma
Virus (HPV), such as cervical, head and neck cancers. The grant award
will assist with advancing an SVP cancer immunotherapy from preclinical
through early clinical evaluation. This immuno-oncology program is
designed to develop novel SVP immunotherapies capable of harnessing the
body’s ‘killer’ immune cells, known as cytolytic T-lymphocytes (CTL), to
attack HPV-transformed tumor cells.
“These funds will help Selecta to rapidly validate our SVP platform in
immuno-oncology, the most promising field of cancer therapy today,” said
Werner Cautreels, PhD, President and CEO of Selecta. “With this grant,
Selecta’s past and committed grant funding now exceeds $20 million,
strategically enabling us to work on therapeutic and prophylactic
vaccines in parallel to our core focus on antigen-specific immune
tolerance.”
In preclinical studies, SVP immunotherapeutics have demonstrated
synergistic effects with anti-PD-1 and anti-PD-L1 antibodies, a family
of checkpoint inhibitors under development for various cancers.
Leveraging the immune-activating potential of its SVP
immunotherapeutics, Selecta intends to broaden its CTL program to other
cancer types and chronic infections in parallel to the HPV program.
“We see tremendous potential to leverage the durable CTL-activating SVP
immunotherapeutics in conjunction with the emerging class of checkpoint
inhibitors,” said Takashi Kishimoto, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of
Selecta. “Immune checkpoint inhibitors relieve the immunosuppressive
microenvironment found in tumors and chronic infections, while our SVP
products elicit a focused and durable immune response specifically
targeted against tumors and infected cells”
About HPV-associated cancer
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is a sexually transmitted infection
which can lead to the development of cancer. Scientific publications
report that HPV is found in 99.7 percent of cases of cervical cancer, in
72 percent of cases of head and neck cancer and as well as up to 55
percent of oropharyngeal cancer. According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), HPV is responsible for 530,000 new cases of cervical
cancer worldwide causing 270,000 deaths annually. For the United States,
the Center of Disease Control (CDC) estimates that there are 26,000
cases of HPV associated cancer per year.
About Selecta
Selecta
Biosciences, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company
developing novel drugs that use immune modulating nanomedicines to
generate targeted antigen-specific immune responses to prevent and treat
disease. Selecta’s proprietary Synthetic Vaccine Particle (SVP)
platform creates a novel paradigm in immunotherapeutics and vaccines,
enabling completely new applications while offering the potential of
improved efficacy and safety profiles.
Selecta’s immunomodulatory
SVPs can induce antigen-specific immune tolerance, enabling them to
be applied in a variety of therapeutic areas with large unmet medical
need. The company is focused on three key near-term applications:
inhibition of immunogenicity of biologic therapies, treatment of
allergies, and treatment of autoimmune diseases. Immunogenicity
adversely affects the safety and efficacy profile for many biological
therapies, and is known to have caused the termination of a number of
promising biological therapies in clinical development. Selecta’s SVP is
a product engine that has the potential to unlock the full therapeutic
value of biologic therapies.
SVP immunotherapeutics can activate the body’s ‘killer’ immune cells,
known as cytolytic T-lymphocytes (CTL), to selectively attack tumor or
chronically infected cells. For Immuno-oncology applications, SVP
products are capable of being used either alone or in conjunction with
other cancer immunotherapies to elicit a focused and durable immune
response specifically targeted against tumors. Selecta’s initial
programs in cancer include cervical, head, neck and other cancers.
Through proprietary products and collaborations with leading
pharmaceutical companies and research organizations, Selecta is building
a pipeline
of product candidates to address unmet medical needs in serious and
chronic diseases. Selecta Biosciences, Inc. is based in Watertown,
Massachusetts, USA. For more information, please visit www.selectabio.com.
Copyright Business Wire 2014