Orca Bio and Lyell Immunopharma Announce Research Partnership
— The partnership promotes complementary scientific technologies to develop next generation cell-based therapies for patients with solid cancers —
MENLO PARK, Calif. and SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Sept. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Orca Bio and Lyell Immunopharma, Inc. today announced a research partnership to jointly identify next generation T cell therapies that will combine precision purification T cell technologies from Orca Bio with the scientific expertise in T cell biology from Lyell to generate potentially synergistic therapeutic solutions for solid tumors.
Lyell Immunopharma has brought together an unrivaled scientific team focused on advancing the science of therapeutic T cells, including the role of T cell differentiation. Orca Bio has developed T cell therapies for patients with blood diseases while also streamlining the commercial manufacture of high-precision cell therapies using OrcaSort™, an ultra-fast, clinically compatible cell sorter.
The ability to produce optimal starting cell populations is one of many continuing challenges in the development of curative T cell therapies. Evidence from current generation cell therapies suggest that the proportion of cell types and their stages of differentiation may impact the safety and efficacy of T cell therapies. Together, the companies aim to mitigate this challenge by utilizing their proprietary technologies to effectively treat solid tumor cancers.
“Lyell Immunopharma is focused on developing curative T cell therapies for solid tumor cancers by defining starting cell preparations and modulating T cells, so they are functional in the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment,” said Nick Restifo, M.D., Executive Vice President of Research for Lyell Immunopharma. “This collaboration with Orca Bio provides the potential to more efficiently define starting cell preparations, which I believe could lead to more effective T cell therapies.”
“Orca Bio has developed extremely pure doses of stem and immune cells that can be precisely formulated to treat cancers,” said Ivan Dimov, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Orca Bio. “By combining our scientific expertise with that of Lyell Immunopharma, and by applying our specialized manufacturing platform, we aim to create the scalable production of adoptive T cell therapies that can reach patients with unprecedented speed.”
Lyell Immunopharma and Orca Bio will each continue to pursue programs independently and through their other partnerships.
About Orca Bio:
Orca Bio is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing a pipeline of high-precision allogeneic cell therapy products. Orca Bio’s products are designed to safely and effectively replace a patient’s diseased blood and immune system with healthy cells. OrcaSort™, the company’s proprietary therapeutic cell sorting technology, is exclusively licensed from Stanford University. For more information, visit www.orcabio.com. Follow Orca Bio on Twitter: @orcabio.
About Lyell Immunopharma:
Lyell Immunopharma, Inc. is a cell therapy company dedicated to understanding and developing technologies to overcome fundamental barriers to curative cancer cell therapies. Lyell brings together an unrivaled scientific team with a collection of novel technologies focused on advancing the science of T cell differentiation, functionality, and target specificity in order to develop curative treatments for solid tumors. These technologies can be used as a platform for multiple new cell therapies that can be applied across a broad range of cancers.
Orca Bio Media Contact: media@orcabio.com Lyell Immunopharma Media Contact: Morgan Warners mwarners@gpg.com 202-337-0808 Danielle Cantey dcantey@gpg.com 202-337-0808
