LIfT BioSciences announces its N-LIfT cell therapy shows tumour destruction across five different solid tumour types in PDX tumouroid models

LIfT BioSciences announces its N-LIfT cell therapy shows tumour destruction across five different solid tumour types in PDX tumouroid models

London, 14^thSeptember 2022 – LIfT BioSciences today announced that its first-in-class cell therapy destroyed on average over 90% of the tumoroid in a PDX organoid across five of the most challenging to treat solid tumour types including bladder cancer, rectal cancer, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer and squamous cell non-small cell lung cancer.

The N-LIfT results showed four days of potent cytotoxicity against a range of high unmet need tumour types, including those that were unresponsive to chemotherapy. The results announced today build upon findings announced in March 2022 which showed potent tumour cell killing with N-LIfT in a lung tumoroid model (SC-NSCLC), with significant superiority over current standards of care, Keytruda and Cisplatin.

Alex Blyth, Chief Executive Officer of LIfT BioSciences, commented: “Targeted therapies often fail because tumours adapt, and they don’t. We are very encouraged by these data which showed that, on average, our unique N-LIfT cell therapy destroyed over ninety percent of the tumouroid. The data adds further credence to our stated mission to develop a cell therapy platform that has the potential to destroy all solid tumours irrespective of type or how it adapts. We continue to be bold and do things differently, and to therefore get excitingly different results that we hope will go on to save many patients lives.”

PDX tumouroids are derived from different patient tumour cells and provide an alternative efficacy indicator model to the mouse model, with retrospective data in solid tumour therapies that went on to clinic showing tumouroids have 81-87% predictive power of how the therapy goes on to perform in the clinical trials in solid tumours, some ten times the predictive power seen in mouse models. LIfT has now managed to show positive results using a special type of partially humanised mouse model to enable N-LIfT to work in mice. However, the company’s official position is that mouse models are of limited value in faithfully assessing the efficacy of modern world of human allogeneic innate cell therapies, and that new organoid and organ-on-a-chip models are the future.

Neutrophils have long been recognised as crucial mediators of innate immunity, they provide the first line of defence against invading microorganisms and threats, capable of mobilizing innate and adaptive responses to return to homeostasis. LIfT Biosciences is harnessing the innate properties of a special type of Immuno-Modulating Alpha Neutrophil (IMAN) that exhibits not only exceptional cytotoxicity but also have the ability to positively immunomodulate tumour environments and the patient’s immune system to help to destroy even challenging solid tumours. ​N-LIfT cells are specially manufactured to differentiate in vivo into IMANs that have the potential to overcome hurdles encountered by other cell therapies in the treatment of solid tumours, by being:

• Allogeneic, straightforward to scale, cost effective and off-the-shelf 
• Innate antigen-independent mechanism-of-action
• Actively recruited into the tumour micro-environment
• Stable and capable of overcoming immunosuppressive tumour microenvironments
• Capable of orchestrating patients own anti-tumour immune responses​​

LIfT BioSciences is the only biotech company in the world with a Neutrophil Based Cell Therapy Platform. LIfT is completing its pre-clinical data package now as it prepares to move into clinical trials at the end of next year, following their eagerly awaited Series A round. LIfT is now also making its patented alpha neutrophil cell therapy platform available to other companies to help to develop breakthrough therapies in other therapy areas.

Figure 1: PDX model shows N-LIfT CANs killing across multiple solid tumour types

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