Agalimmune founded to develop immunotherapeutics for cancer
Supported by an investment group comprising Loxbridge Research and Animatrix Capital
Agalimmune, a biopharmaceutical company based in London, UK and Irvine, CA, US, has been created to develop immunotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer, with a focus on solid tumours.
An investment group comprising Loxbridge Research and Animatrix Capital are the company's founders. The funding will be used to continue the translation of Agalimmune’s leading immunotherapeutic technology, Alphaject, licensed from the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), to the clinic.
The Alphaject technology, based on 20 years of research by UMMS Professor of Surgery and Medicine Uri Galili, includes methods for treating solid tumours in such a way that the immune system actively rejects them, akin to a non-matched graft or transplant. Tumours are directly injected with the Alphaject compound, to which humans naturally have a high antibody titre. Alphaject coats the tumour cells in alphagal, thereby presenting a foreign antigen to the immune system. This is thought to bring about a 'hyper-acute rejection' of the tumour, and breaks the immune tolerance shielding the tumour from attack, allowing the immune system to both begin to destroy the tumour immediately and also to confer a long-lasting protection over time in the form of enhanced immune surveillance. The effect is analogous to a personalised cancer vaccine, acting continuously to prevent both metastasis and recurrence.
Mike Westby, CEO of Agalimmune, said: 'The development of immunomodulatory therapies is an exciting and rapidly emerging field, which hopefully will lead to improved anti-cancer treatments for patients.'
'Immunotherapy holds great promise as a potential cancer treatment because it allows the body’s own immune system to identify and eradicate cancer cells,' added Giles Whalen, Professor of Surgical Oncology at UMass Medical School and principal investigator on early clinical trials to develop the Alphaject technology.
'One of the great benefits of this approach is that the immune system can seek out and attack even the smallest traces of tumour anywhere in the body. What makes Alphaject so remarkable is that it’s designed to alert the immune system and respond to a specific type of cancer cell. Unlike other immunomodulatory therapies, which may stimulate the immune system to attack cells indiscriminately, this helps ensure healthy cells don’t get mistakenly targeted and destroyed.'
