Invasive bladder cancer can be treated through immunotherapy involving Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), but some 40%-60% of treated patients suffer progression or recurrence. In an effort to find more effective treatments for refractory disease, researchers at the Université de Sherbrooke and its hospital research center have engineered an oncolytic vesicular stomatitis virus encoding granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (VSVd51-GM-CSF).

CDR-Life Inc. has announced CDR-609 as its next clinical candidate. Built on the company’s proprietary M-gager platform, CDR-609 is a novel T-cell engager targeting LGR5, a surface antigen widely expressed on common solid tumors, including colorectal, gastric, liver and pancreatic cancers.

Diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs) are pediatric brain tumors with a very dismal prognosis since less than 5% of patients survive 2 years after diagnosis. Radiotherapy remains the standard treatment for DMG, and several combination chemotherapies and single-agent target therapies are currently being explored.

Aptevo Therapeutics Inc. has added a preclinical candidate, APVO-455, to its portfolio of CD3-directed candidates built on the CRIS-7-derived CD3 binding domain.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has been a game changer in the treatment of B-cell malignancies, although their manufacturing process is complex and needs lymphodepletion, thus limiting their use. Researchers from Capstan Therapeutics Inc. have recently published data regarding an in vivo engineering approach to generate CAR T cells using targeted lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for mRNA delivery to specific T-cell populations for the treatment of cancer and B-cell-mediated autoimmune diseases.

Lung cancer is the second most frequent cancer worldwide, and it accounts for 18% of all cancer-related deaths. Most cases of lung cancer involve non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), in which therapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) can improve prognosis, yet up to 75% of patients fail to respond to it. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College have identified potential metabolic markers that may help predict which patients are more likely to respond to ICI therapy.

Researchers at Araris Biotech AG have developed antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology that allows single-step connection of antibody to drug via a novel RKAA peptide linker that stably prevents the drug from acting systemically.

At the Annual Congress of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) in Lisbon, multiple sessions aimed to provide fresh perspectives on the always challenging treatment of cancer, with a strong focus on innovative strategies.

Researchers at Queen’s University of Belfast and collaborators have developed a DNA vaccine against high-grade serous ovarian cancer. The vaccine encodes PRAME, which the researchers found to be upregulated in several cohorts of patients with the malignancy.