Enara Bio announced that Boehringer Ingelheim has exercised its option to license a number of cancer antigens discovered and validated through the ongoing collaboration using Enara Bio’s Dark Antigen discovery platform, EDAPT®. This licensing event is a major milestone in the strategic collaboration between the companies that was announced in January 2021. Based on the licensed antigens, Boehringer intends to develop novel off-the-shelf vaccines for the treatment of patients with NSCLC.
Despite new treatment options, lung cancer remains the most common cause of cancer death worldwide. Globally, the number of cases of lung cancer is estimated to rise from 2.1 million in 2018 to 3.6 million in 2040. NSCLC is the most common type of lung cancer, accounting for approximately 85% of cases.
Under the collaboration, Enara Bio’s EDAPT platform is being used to discover and validate Dark Antigens in multiple solid tumor types. The initial discovery project identified a series of antigens with high prevalence in NSCLC patients. During the antigen validation work package, Enara Bio demonstrated that the licensed antigens have several attractive characteristics as targets for immunotherapies. These include confirmed presence on the surface of tumor cells, minimal or no expression on healthy cells, homogenous expression within tumors, and strong immunogenicity. In addition to licensing these antigens, Boehringer Ingelheim has triggered the remaining component of the collaboration to initiate antigen discovery in another solid tumor.
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