Gilead Sciences, Kite Pharma, and oNKo-innate announced on Wednesday that they were entering a three-year cancer immunotherapy research collaboration. The goal is to support the discovery and development of next-generation drug and engineered cell therapies, specifically with a focus on natural killer (NK) cells.

Gilead is pleased to partner with oNKo-innate as a leader in this new and highly promising area of cancer immunotherapy, said William A. Lee, PhD, Executive Vice President, Research, Gilead Sciences. We have a strategic focus of growing both our expertise and pipeline in immuno-oncology and we believe this exciting collaboration will support each of these objectives as we work to discover and develop novel cancer therapies for patients.

Most existing cancer immunotherapy approaches focus on T cell mediated anti-tumor immunity. NK cells are a class of white blood cells that have an effector role in the immune system. Together, NK and T cells can potentially attack cancer cells, but they ultimately have different approaches to killing tumor cells. For this reason, activated and targeted NK cells may represent a different approach to attacking cancer at its source.

Kite is committed to building upon our leadership in cell therapy as we seek to meet the needs of patients with cancer, said Peter Emtage, PhD, Senior Vice President of Research at Kite. Early clinical data utilizing adoptively transferred NK cells has been encouraging and we are excited by the opportunity to scientifically expand our capabilities in this area and to identify novel NK cell therapies to advance toward clinical development.

As a result of the collaboration, oNKo-innate will use genome-wide screening techniques to reveal immune cell targets that enhance NK cell anti-tumor immunity. It will also execute screens for Gilead to identify and validate targets for internal immune-oncology discovery programs. For Kite, oNKo-innate intends to create and evaluate NK constructs to develop next-generation cell therapies.

With more than 20 years of collective academic expertise in NK cell biology, we have long believed in the potential for NK cells to play a role in cancer immunotherapy, said Jai Rautela, PhD, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of oNKo-innate. We look forward to bringing this NK cell expertise and our unique screening techniques into a collaboration with Gilead and Kite to serve a common goal of discovering new treatments for patients.

A study published in March of this year revealed that NK cells can be more effective the earlier they are in development. Senior Author Christopher M. Sturgeon, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine, stated that there is evidence that suggests future immunotherapy will not utilize cells from patients or a matched donor. Instead, it may potentially be developed from existing supplies of human pluripotent stem cells.

There is early evidence that they are more consistent in their effectiveness, and we would not need to process cells from a donor or the patient, said Sturgeon. They could be manufactured from existing cell supplies following the strict federal guidelines for good manufacturing practices. The characteristics of these cells let us envision a supply of them ready to pull off the shelf whenever a patient needs them.

Earlier this month, a study published in Targeted Oncology showed results that suggest that the number of NK cells and their high activity could potentially be a biomarker to predict the effectiveness of immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer patients. Choi Chang-min of Asan Medical Center, who led the research, told the Korea Biomedical Review that an NK cell activity test could eventually become a biomarker to predict immune checkpoint inhibitors and serve as criteria to provide various cancer treatment options.

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Gilead, Kite and oNKO-innate Announce Pact to Focus on NK Cells for Immunotherapy - BioSpace