OUR APPROACH TO CELL THERAPY FOR CANCER

The DeltEx Platform

Our DeltEx platform has enabled a deep pipeline of preclinical and clinical product candidates, which are designed to effectively target and potentially eradicate disease, to improve patient outcomes.

Key elements of our approach to treating cancer include:
  • Advanced expertise in the manufacturing of ex-vivo, expanded, activated gamma-delta T cells
  • First-in-class proprietary gamma-delta T cell engineering for chemotherapy resistance
  • Advanced next-generation, closed-system, scalable, gamma-delta T cell manufacturing
  • Broad applicability of our engineered DeltEx cells across multiple solid tumor indications

Gamma-delta T cells: Leveraging the Nexus of the Immune System

The innate and adaptive immune responses both play critical roles in the fight against cancer. While both systems possess critical functions, the most effective tumor killing occurs when they work in concert. Gamma-delta T cells are a unique subset of immune cells that sit at the nexus of the innate and adaptive systems and possess properties of both. This combination of features conveys functional abilities that make them ideally suited for use in cell therapy against cancer. Gamma-delta T cells are multifunctional with a complex receptor repertoire, which allows them to distinguish between healthy and diseased or stressed tissue. This particular mode of antigen recognition is a critical feature that distinguishes them from not only alpha-beta T cells but also B cells and NK cells. Gamma-delta T cells can kill effectively, both by direct cellular killing as well as the recruitment of additional immune cells to induce tumor cell killing. Importantly, they can kill without previous antigen priming similar to certain innate cells, such as NK cells, but can also function to present antigen directly to drive cytokine release, target neoantigens, and recruit and activate additional immune cell types.

OUR GAMMA-DELTA TECHNOLOGY

DeltEx Drug Resistant Immunotherapy

Our platform is designed to overcome many of the challenges associated with expansion, genetic engineering and scalable manufacturing of gamma-delta T cells. This allows us to harnessing their unique properties for potential therapies against both solid and liquid tumors.
Chemotherapy, a mainstay of solid tumor treatment, can deplete and damage immune cells, limiting their ability to seek and kill tumors. This is further compounded by the lymphodepleting properties of chemotherapy, which can severely reduce the number of immune cells, such as gamma-delta T cells, that can seek out and kill the residual tumors cells. We have leveraged our proprietary genetic modifications to protect our DeltEx cells from chemotherapy-induced damage, allowing for their concurrent delivery with chemotherapy so they can recognize and kill residual tumor cells when the tumor is experiencing maximum chemotherapy induced stress. We have termed this approach “DeltEx drug resistant immunotherapy,” or DeltEx DRI, and it is the basis for several of our programs, including INB-200.