Adaptimmune Initiates Phase I / II Trial Evaluating Its Affinity Enhanced T-Cell Therapy Targeting NY-ESO-1 in Patients With the Most Common Type of Lung Cancer

Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc

, a leader in the use of engineered T-cell therapy to treat cancer, today announced that it has initiated a study of its affinity enhanced T-cell therapy targeting the NY-ESO-1 cancer antigen in patients with Stage IIIb or Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common type of lung cancer, representing approximately 85 percent of lung cancers. Adaptimmune is developing the affinity enhanced T-cell therapy targeting NY-ESO-1 under a collaboration agreement with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). "Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide and it is the leading cause of all cancer-related deaths, responsible for approximately 1 in 5 cancer deaths. NSCLC accounts for the vast majority of these cancer deaths and thus represents a great unmet medical need," commented Dr. Rafael Amado, Adaptimmune's Chief Medical Officer. "Our NY-ESO TCR therapeutic candidate is being studied in a number of solid tumors and hematological malignancies including synovial sarcoma, multiple myeloma, melanoma, ovarian cancer and gastric and esophageal cancer, and we are excited to initiate this study in patients with NSCLC. This new study marks an important step toward further elucidating the