Parker Institute, Tessa in cell therapy deal

In a new multi-year deal, the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (San Francisco, Calif.) and Tessa Therapeutics Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) intend to develop cell therapies and immuno-oncology combination treatments. The partners said the collaboration is the Parker Institute's first with a cell therapy company.

The partners will use Tessa's virus-specific T cell technology, in which a patient's cytotoxic T cells are extracted and stimulated to target tumor cells with viral antigens from Epstein-Barr virus or HPV, and then reintroduced into the patient. Tessa's lead candidate TT10 is in a Phase III study to treat advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The product comprises autologous EBV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes...