Pact makes case for neoantigen-specific TCRs from patient blood

Preclinical studies from Pact Pharma and UCLA suggest neoantigen-specific T cells in patient blood will be reliable blueprints for the company's personalized, engineered cell therapies. Recruitment is ongoing for a Phase I study of Pact's T cell therapy plus an anti-PD-1 therapy in solid tumors with a range of checkpoint inhibitor sensitivities.

In a pair of presentations Sunday, Pact Pharma Inc. (South San Francisco, Calif.) showed its platform identified neoantigen-specific CD8 T cells in blood from treatment-naïve patients with melanoma, ovarian or colorectal cancer, and neoantigen-specific T cell receptors (TCRs) isolated from the blood of a checkpoint inhibitor-treated melanoma patient enabled fresh CD4 and CD8 T cells to kill that patient's tumor cells in culture...