Gritstone Bio and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Establish a Clinical Trial Agreement
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
Gritstone announced that it has entered into a clinical trial agreement with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), to evaluate an autologous T cell therapy expressing a T cell receptor targeting mutated KRAS in combination with Gritstone’s KRAS-directed vaccine candidate, SLATE-KRAS, in a Phase 1 study.
NCI will lead the Phase 1 study using Gritstone’s proprietary “off the shelf” vaccine technology for mutant KRAS solid tumours.
Under the terms of the agreement, NCI will identify patients with metastatic cancer who are eligible for adoptive cell transfer based on the presence of a G12V or G12D KRAS mutation (KRASmut). Gritstone will provide the SLATE-KRAS vaccine as requested by NCI for the trial.
The use of neoantigen vaccines to enhance the potency of neoantigen-directed T cell therapy is an attractive concept with supportive pre-clinical data. The KRAS-directed vaccine has demonstrated the ability to induce and expand KRASmut-specific T cells and drive into solid tumours in multiple clinical studies. This approach to potentially deepening and extending the therapeutic effect of TCR-T will provide improved outcomes to solid tumour patients.
