Manufacturing & Production
Parthenon Therapeutics, a precision oncology company that is focusing on inventing a novel class of anti-cancer therapies to reprogramme the tumour microenvironment (TME), is collaborating with ImaginAb Inc, a global biotechnology company developing imaging agents and radiopharmaceutical therapies (RPT) products.
The two companies have announced that they have entered into a multi-year, non-exclusive licence and supply agreement, meaning Parthenon will be able to use ImaginAb’s CD8 ImmunoPET imaging technology in its phase 1 trial for its lead compound PRTH-101, which is due to start in 2023.
Laurent Audoly, CEO and co-founder of Parthenon Therapeutics, said, “Parthenon is developing an entirely new class of anti-cancer therapies that can modulate the TME in immune-excluded tumours through our proprietary approach that utilises biomarkers to match our therapeutic approaches to individual patients based on the specific characteristics of their cancer. ImaginAb’s CD8 ImmunoPET technology will provide us with critical insight into the infiltration of CD8 T cells in the TME, not only for a small part of a single lesion but also for an entire tumour as well as all tumours throughout a patient’s body. This approach is less invasive compared to the current biopsy-based standard of care and is consistent with the objective of generating a rich data set of biomarker endpoints leveraging orthogonal approaches in the earliest phases of our clinical trial.
“PRTH-101 targets discoidin domain receptor 1 (DDR1) to punch holes in the mechanical barrier that characterises immune-excluded tumours, thereby making them vulnerable to attack by the immune system. The CD8 ImmunoPET data will be used in our phase 1 trial to quantify the degree of immune infiltration into tumours before and after dosing, and be used to identify tumours that are ‘hot’, ‘cold’ or ‘immune excluded’. This knowledge will help us design a clinical strategy to focus on those patients who will benefit the most from treatment with PRTH-101.”