Prescient Therapeutics announced a strategic collaboration with the largest cancer centre in the US1, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center ("MD Anderson") with the goal of creating best-in-class, adaptable CAR-T cell therapies to treat hematological malignancies. The agreement is designed to combine Prescient's OmniCAR modular "plug and play" CAR platform with an undisclosed, proprietary binder discovered by MD Anderson's ECLIPSE (coEvolution of Leukemia and Immunity Post Stem cEll transplant) platform. ECLIPSE has established a broad sample library, enabling research to uncover unique binders that may allow for targeting blood cancer cells in a manner that is distinct to CAR-T therapies.

These binders are T cell receptor (TCR)-like antibodies which find cancer cells in a similar immune matching mechanism as is used during organ donor matching for transplantation. A key benefit to using TCR-like binders is their ability to target proteins that are usually on the inside of a tumour cell, as distinct from antigens present on the surface of tumour cells, thus opening up a new range of options for cellular therapy targets. TCR-like binders are expected to be highly specific, with no expected cross-reactivity to healthy tissues, which is important for safety.

This will be especially important when targeting cancer cells that do not express appreciable levels of tumour-associated antigens on their surface. Multi-arming OmniCAR-T cells with PTX binders against tumour-associated antigens (like its CD33 and CLL1 binders) as well as novel TCR-like binders that target cancer cells using immune matching mechanisms, has the potential to result in synergies including increased efficacy and a broader spectrum of cancer killing. It consolidates OmniCAR at the forefront of cellular immunotherapy, with modular, controllable cell therapies that target both proteins on the surface, and now, inside cancer cells.