Defence Therapeutics Inc. has announced the successful testing of a second-generation anticancer vaccine, ARM-002, using its lead anticancer molecule Accutox. When tested as a therapeutic vaccine in a melanoma cancer model, ARM-002 led to an 80% complete response when combined with an anti-PD-1 immune-checkpoint inhibitor.

Previous research has shown that adenosine impairs antitumor immunity, and high levels of adenosine and CD73 have been associated with poor prognosis in cancer.

Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) Co. Ltd. and Abl Bio Inc. have established a collaboration to develop new bispecific antibody-drug conjugates (bsADCs).

CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. has obtained clearance by China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) to conduct clinical trials in China with SYS-6023 for advanced solid tumors.

Development and optimization of novel oral selective hematopoietic progenitor kinase 1 (HPK1) inhibitors for immuno-oncology (IO) treatment were reported by scientists from Astrazeneca plc in two presentations during the ACS meeting this week.

Asgard Therapeutics AB has announced a €30 million (US$32.7 million) series A financing to advance its first-in-class in vivo cell reprogramming platform for immuno-oncology.

Seven years since the first approval of two chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies for hematological cancers, U.S. and Singapore-based Immunoscape Pte Ltd. is looking to develop novel T-cell receptor (TCR) therapeutics for solid tumors.

A new spinout from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, is tackling biology to better understand immune cell function and to find targets that were thought to be undruggable. Onko-innate co-founders Jai Rautela and Nicholas Huntington first worked together at Huntington’s lab at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in Melbourne where they studied the role of natural killer (NK) cells in tumor immunology and discovered some interesting regulatory pathways for cytokine responses.