3 financings in 4 days, domestic cell therapy companies rush to the battlefield of solid tumors passionately

According to the latest global cancer data in 2021, solid tumors account for about 90% of cancers, but the data provided by ClinicalTrials.
gov shows that similar to previous years, most trials of cell therapy are focused on hematological malignancies and trials on solid tumors Accounted for 40%, most of which are in the early stages
.

This reflects that solid tumors are still a difficult point in cellular immunotherapy

However, on the path of using cell therapy to overcome solid tumors, academia and industry continue to overcome difficulties, and some recent early clinical data also show hope
.

In the future, solid tumors, which account for 90% of the total, will undoubtedly become the main battlefield of major cellular immunotherapy against cancer

Some solid tumor cell therapy results

Source: Nature reviews drug discovery

China and the United States can be said to go hand in hand in the field of cell therapy, leading the development of cell therapy
.

Last week, in 4 days, three domestic cell therapy companies with solid tumors completed financing, with a financing amount of more than 300 million yuan, and each company has a different powerful weapon against solid tumors

Weapon 1: TCR-T

Weapon 1: TCR-T

Compared with CAR-T, which has achieved outstanding results in the treatment of hematoma, for solid tumors, the industry generally believes that TCR-T cell therapy that can specifically recognize tumor antigens has more therapeutic potential
.

However, how to provide patients with TCR-T cell therapy drugs quickly, accurately and effectively is a major pain point that plagues the development of the industry

On October 14, Neowise Biotechnology completed a round A financing of 100 million yuan
.

This round of financing was led by Taifu Capital, followed by Sinopharm Capital.

Xinjing Zhiyuan hopes to use its self-developed high-throughput antigen-antigen receptor screening technology to analyze a large number of patient samples, thereby establishing the world's largest paired Antigen-TCR library (Paired Antigen-TCR library)
.

Based on this database, Xinjing Zhiyuan can quickly select the antigen receptor (TCR) that accurately recognizes solid tumors, edit, expand and functionally identify the T cells of tumor patients, and inject highly specific recognition of the patient’s tumor surface antigens.

It is reported that the company has completed the verification of hundreds of pMHC-TCR pairs in the past year around the HLA subtypes that are highly expressed in the Chinese population, and has established a high-throughput computing and experimental platform from discovery to verification in the process
.

Weapon 2: STAR-T

Weapon 2: STAR-T

CAR-T and TCR-T occupies half of the cell immunotherapy in the field of cancer
.

However, the former has limited curative effect on solid tumors, while the latter is limited by MHC

STAR-T was developed by the team of Professor Lin Xin from the School of Medicine of Tsinghua University.
This technology exhibits better tumor invasion and higher antigen sensitivity than traditional CAR-T cells, and has a similar effect to that conferred by natural TCR-like signal transduction.
Favorable properties, but not limited by MHC I, may provide clinical benefits for the treatment of refractory solid tumors
.

Source: Huaxia Yingtai official website (top) and Science Translational Medicine (bottom)

In addition, STAR is antigen-specific.
In the absence of antigen, STAR will not trigger tonic signaling (tonic signaling, antigen-independent signaling, which is a common cause of T cell failure)
.

Therefore, STAR-T has better persistence in the body

On October 11, China Intech, founded by Professor Lin Xin, announced the completion of a Series B financing of more than 200 million yuan
.
This round of financing was led by Huachuang Capital, and the funds will be used for the advancement of clinical trials of the company's dual-target hematoma STAR-T project, the development of solid tumor STAR-T pipelines, clinical research development, and industrialization construction
.

Established in March 2018, Huaxia Intech has two unique technology platforms, STAR-T and enTCR-T, as well as a mature industrialization platform for process development and quality control
.

Weapon 3: TIL

Weapon 3: TIL

Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (Tumor infiltrating lymphocyte, TIL) refers to the treatment of separating tumor infiltrating lymphocytes from tumor tissues, culturing them in vitro and expanding them in a large amount, and then returning them to the patient's body
.
TIL was discovered by Steven A.
Rosenberg and his team, a leader in the immunology world.
Compared with CAR-T cell therapy and PD-1/PD-L1 antibody, TIL has the advantages of multiple targets, strong tumor tendency and infiltration ability, and less side effects
.

TIL therapy is not only safer, but also effective in conquering solid tumors
.
At present, TIL therapy has carried out clinical trials for various solid tumors such as metastatic melanoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, cholangiocarcinoma, ovarian cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, and glioma
.

It is worth noting that on August 12, a study on TIL therapy in the Nature publication showed that for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who progressed after PD-1 treatment, some long-term remissions were obtained after the use of TIL therapy
.
What is even more exciting is that the tumors of the two patients disappeared completely, and continued remission for more than one and a half years
.

According to a report from Artery Network on October 11, Jinfeng Bio, which is committed to the development of TIL therapy, has completed a tens of millions of dollars in Series A financing
.
This round of financing is led by Daotong Investment, and the proceeds will be used to promote its product pipeline into the IND phase and conduct phase I clinical trials
.

Jinfeng Bio was founded in early 2020 by entrepreneur and scientist Dr.
Fuli Yu.
It aims to develop the clinical application of TIL therapy and cure and cure by seamlessly integrating multi-omics/bioinformatics/artificial intelligence with cell therapy.
Patients with solid tumors
.

Jinfeng Biological plans to advance part of its product pipeline into clinical practice in early 2022, and strive to complete the construction of a GMP workshop covering an area of ​​several thousand square meters and accelerate the expansion of the team by the end of the year
.

summary

summary

To conquer solid tumors, cell therapy is imperative
.
In addition to TCR-T, STAR-T, and TIL, NK cell therapy is also involved in solid tumors
.
In addition, even the CAR-T therapy that is not “good at” in this field is gradually overcoming technical barriers under the unremitting exploration of scientists and marching toward the solid tumor battlefield
.
Looking forward to the future cell therapy can bring more gospel to patients with solid tumors
.

Note: The original text has been deleted

Reference materials:

Reference materials:

1# Samik Upadhaya et al.
The clinical pipeline for cancer cell therapies.
Nature reviews drug discovery.
(2021)

1# Samik Upadhaya et al.
The clinical pipeline for cancer cell therapies.
Nature reviews drug discovery.
(2021)

2# First release | Xinjing Zhiyuan completed a round of financing of 100 million yuan, focusing on TCR-T immune cell therapy in the field of solid tumors (Source: Medical Rubik's Cube)

2# First release | Xinjing Zhiyuan completed a round of financing of 100 million yuan, focusing on TCR-T immune cell therapy in the field of solid tumors (Source: Medical Rubik's Cube)

3# Huaxia Yingtai completed over 200 million yuan of B round of financing to accelerate the development of innovative cell therapy drugs to meet the clinical needs of patients with advanced cancer (Source: Medical Rubik's Cube)

3# Huaxia Yingtai completed over 200 million yuan of B round of financing to accelerate the development of innovative cell therapy drugs to meet the clinical needs of patients with advanced cancer (Source: Medical Rubik's Cube)

4#[First Issue] TIL Therapy Company Jinfeng Biotechnology announced that it has completed a tens of millions of dollars in Series A financing, led by Daotong Investment (Source: Artery Network)

4#[First Issue] TIL Therapy Company Jinfeng Biotechnology announced that it has completed a tens of millions of dollars in Series A financing, led by Daotong Investment (Source: Artery Network)

5# Benjamin C.
Creelan et al.
Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte treatment for anti-PD-1-resistant metastatic lung cancer: a phase 1 trial.
Nature Medicine.
(2021)

5# Benjamin C.
Creelan et al.
Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte treatment for anti-PD-1-resistant metastatic lung cancer: a phase 1 trial.
Nature Medicine.
(2021)