Date: 2017-03-21
Type of information: Licensing agreement
Compound: VLP-cGAMP technology
Company: Stimunity (France) Institut Curie (France) Inserm (France)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Type agreement: licensing R&D
Action mechanism: The technology is based on a Virus-Like Particle (VLP) and stimulates the innate immune system via the STING pathway. The STING pathway is known to induce an activation of innate immunity, and a lymphocytes T-CD8 response against tumor cells (which is lacking for non-responding patients under anti-checkpoint therapy). Stimunity's technology is based on a Virus-Like Particle (VLP) which encapsulates inside the cGAMP, a molecule that is known to be the most efficient STING ligand to date. The VLP is the ideal delivery system that efficiently fuses with the cell membranes and delivers intracellularly the ligand cGAMP. In vivo results show excellent activation of the STING pathway, T-CD8 production, and anti-tumoral response
Disease:
Details: * On March 21, 2017, Stimunity, Institut Curie and Inserm have signed an exclusive worldwide license agreement on two key patents that cover Stimunity’s core technology VLP-cGAMP to develop new drugs in immuno-oncology. This technology is based on a fundamental discovery made by the Innate Immunity laboratory at Institut Curie, lead by Dr. Nicolas Manel, senior researcher at Inserm and co-founder of Stimunity. He discovered that viruses, when they infect healthy cells, can encapsulate a molecule that acts like a Trojan horse and triggers an immune system's response. This discovery was protected and covered by two major publications in Science. “This discovery gave us the idea of using a synthetic and inoffensive virus-like particle (VLP) that encapsulates the Trojan horse molecule and drives a very efficient immune response against tumor cells. This was the starting point of the project” explains Dr. Manel. The project was supported since the beginning by the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) of Institut Curie. The license agreement comes together with an R&D Agreement between Stimunity and Nicolas Manel’s laboratory. It will allow the company to finalize the validation of the mechanism of action of the drug.
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