Onchilles Pharma Inc. has nominated its first drug development candidate, N-17350, a first-in-class biologic therapeutic that is designed to leverage the immunobiology of neutrophils against a wide range of cancer types. Research published last year first described a pathway where human neutrophils release catalytically active neutrophil elastase, called ELANE, to selectively kill many cancer cell types while sparing noncancer cells.

Janssen Pharmaceutica NV reported on the company’s novel fully human immunoglobulin G1 CD79bxCD20xCD3 trispecific antibody JNJ-80948543, comprising an anti-CD3 ε single-chain variable fragment (scFv), an anti-CD20 scFv, and an anti-CD79b fragment antigen-binding (Fab) domain and an effector-silent Fc, designed to redirect T cells to treat patients whose disease no longer responds to previous lines of therapy.

While autologous cancer vaccines have held great promise as a personalized approach to treating individualized cancer types, their practical use has failed to deliver in the clinic to date largely owing to low efficacy in eliciting a tumor-specific response.

While tremendous progress has been achieved using immunotherapies for treating hematologic malignancies, there has been little change in the survival of cancer patients with solid tumors. One of the reasons may involve the distinctive limited expression of signaling lymphocytic activation molecule family member 7 (SLAMF7) on hematopoietic cancer cells and macrophages, creating a bridge connecting cells to enable a strong immune response, while SLAMF7 is not expressed on solid tumors at all.

Researchers from the Second Hospital of Jilin University have developed a strategy involving immunogenic cell death (ICD) induced by photodynamic therapeutic (PDT) with the aim of enhancing the antitumor effects of an anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody (MAb).

Ovarian cancer is ordinarily associated with poor survival; patients diagnosed with high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSC) have an overall survival of about 40% at 5 years and 15% at 10 years. Despite having similar histologic features, HGSC patients often experience highly variable outcomes and the underlying determinants for long-term survival (LTS) are largely unknown. In a study published online in Nature Genetics, a multi-institutional group of researchers tried to determine the molecular differences that drive LTS in patients with HGSC.

NK cell-based cancer immunotherapy has emerged as an anticancer treatment approach and is currently being tested in clinical trials. KIR2DL5, a member of the human killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) family, has recently been identified as a binding partner for poliovirus receptor (PVR). However, the biology and therapeutic potential of the KIR2DL5/PVR pathway remain widely unexplored.