Elicera Therapeutics AB announced that the company has been invited to present at the scientific conference International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT) Meeting 2024 in Vancouver, Canada, May 28 to June 1. ISCT brings together leading researchers, clinicians and industry experts in cell and gene therapy from around the world. The main purpose of the conference is to promote the exchange of new scientific advances, technological advances and clinical insights in the rapidly developing field of cell and gene therapy. The iTANK technology platform has been developed for arming and enhancing CAR T-cells to meet two of the major challenges CAR T-cell therapies face in the treatment of solid tumors: a very diverse set of tumor antigen targets and a very hostile tumor microenvironment.

The technology is used to incorporate a transgene into CAR T-cells encoding a neutrophil activating bacterial protein (NAP). NAP secreted from the CAR(NAP) T-cells has been shown to be able to enhance the function of CAR T-cells and importantly activating a parallel bystander immune response against the cancer via CD8+ killer T-cells. This is expected to lead to a broad attack against most antigen targets on cancer cells.

The iTANK platform is used to enhance the company's own CAR T-cells but can also be universally applied to other CAR T-cell therapies under development. Proof-of-concept data was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering in April 2022.