Instil Bio, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing tumor infiltrating lymphocyte, or TIL, therapies for the treatment of patients with cancer, today reported an oral presentation at the British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Conference, demonstrating that its proprietary CoStimulatory Antigen Receptor (CoStAR) platform enhances activity of TILs against autologous tumor.
The presentation highlighted CoStAR’s unique mechanism of action which results in greatly enhanced activity of TILs when activation occurs through both the native TCR and engineered CoStAR receptors. Additionally, novel data demonstrated that Instil’s FRα-CoStAR enhances activity of TILs against autologous tumors with varied expression of FRα including ovarian, renal, and non-small cell lung cancer tumors. The robust activity of NSCLC, ovarian, and renal carcinoma CoStAR-TILs against autologous tumor exceeded that of genetically unmodified melanoma TILs, as measured by secretion of IFNγ.
Presented data showing that folate receptor α (FRα)-CoStAR enhanced activity of TILs against autologous NSCLC, ovarian, and renal tumors.
“The finding that CoStAR can enhance the anti-tumor reactivity of TILs in challenging tumor types such as non-small cell lung cancer even beyond that seen with melanoma TILs is compelling,” said Robert Hawkins, MBBS PhD, Head of Research and Development at Instil Bio. “These preclinical data continue to support our excitement around the anticipated resumption of the clinical study of ITIL-306 in patients with advanced cancers which express FRα.”
SOURCE: GlobeNewswire