Intrexon Signs Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the National Cancer Institute

Intrexon Corporation XON, a leader in synthetic biology, today announced that Intrexon has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, for the development of adoptive T cell therapies utilizing the RheoSwitch Therapeutic System® (RTS®) platform for the treatment of solid tumor malignancies. The principal goal of the CRADA is to develop and evaluate improved adoptive cell transfer-based immunotherapies (ACT) using NCI proprietary methods for the identification of autologous peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) possessing naturally occurring anti-tumor activity combined with Intrexon's RTS® gene switch for introducing spatially and temporally controlled interleukin-12 (IL-12) expression. RTS® technology enables transcriptional regulation of a wide variety of therapeutic genes upon dosing of an oral activator ligand veledimex, including in vivo modulation of IL-12 gene expression with a broad dynamic range. As the first gene switch employed in the clinic to enable dose-dependent cytokine expression and offer the ability to administer or withdraw veledimex for continued treatment cycles, the RheoSwitch® platform provides the opportunity to tailor solutions for patient-specific therapeutic effects. Intrexon will genetically modify PBL using vectors that encode IL-12 under RTS® inducible control. Lead anti-tumor ACT/PBL/IL-12 cell therapy candidates will then be clinically evaluated by NCI in patients with metastatic cancer. Under the CRADA, Steven A. Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of the Surgery Branch in the Center for Cancer Research at the NCI, will be the Principal Investigator for the study, and Gregory Frost, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Head of Intrexon's Health Sector, will serve as co-investigator. "Dr. Rosenberg and his colleagues at the NCI Surgery Branch have extensive experience in the clinical translation of tumor-targeting peripheral blood products for cancer treatment," said Dr. Frost. "Together with our molecular and cell engineering capabilities, we believe the research programs under this CRADA have the potential to accelerate development of targeted and controllable adoptive therapies for patients suffering with advanced stage malignancies."