Targeted therapies and immunotherapies have revolutionized cancer treatment in recent years. However, achieving durable responses and, ultimately, curing metastatic cancers driven by intracellular oncogenes remains a primary unmet medical need. Although fragments of intracellular oncoproteins can act as neoantigens presented by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), recognizing the typically minimal differences between oncoproteins and their normal counterparts makes this approach quite challenging.

Affimed NV and Artiva Biotherapeutics Inc. have entered into a new strategic partnership to jointly develop, manufacture and commercialize a combination therapy comprised of Affimed's Innate Cell Engager (ICE) AFM-13 and Artiva's cord blood-derived, cryopreserved off-the-shelf allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell product candidate, AB-101.

The FDA has awarded orphan drug designation to Omega Therapeutics Inc.'s OTX-2002, a first-in-class epigenomic controller engineered to downregulate c-Myc (MYC), for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Exelixis Inc. and Sairopa BV have entered into an exclusive clinical development and option agreement for ADU-1805, a potentially best-in-class monoclonal antibody that targets SIRPα.

Arbutus Biopharma Corp. has described programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) antagonists reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer, hepatitis B and hepatitis D viral infection.