16th May 2018 - Eurostars, a  European  joint  programme,  co-funded  from  the  national  budgets  of  several EUREKA countries and by the European Union through Horizon 2020 has awarded,through a highly-competitive  selection  process,the  Project  “A  novel  modified  natural  killer  (NK)  cell immunotherapy for the treatment of solid tumours” –MODIFY-NK.

The consortium composed of Glycostem Therapeutics BV (The Netherlands), YUMAB GmbH (Germany), Explicyte(France) and OZ Biosciences SAS (France) will deliver a novel cell-based therapy to treat solid tumours with chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) expressing allogeneic (i.e. from a patient independent donor) natural killer (NK) cells. These CARs strongly improve solid  tumour  targeting  and  killing  potential.  The  efficacy  of  this  clinical  grade  CAR-NK  cell product will be validated in a preclinical solid tumour model and the therapy will be ready for clinical studies within 24 months after completion of this project.

The total reward amounts to €3,626,860.00 for the 3-year programme.

“We  are  proud  and  delighted  that  our  innovative  proposal  was  selected  and  rewarded  by Eurostars funding. The synergistic combination of our consortium technologies will definitely provide  a  breakthrough  in  this  exhilarating  field  of  immunotherapy.  We  look  forward  to  a fruitful collaboration and successful outcome” said Olivier Zelphati, CEO of OZ BiosciencesSas.

“This highly exciting opportunity to work in synchronisation withother healthcare companies in France and Germany, generating new cellular immunotherapy productsis very motivating. With  theother  consortium  members  we  have  a  very  good  chance  of  learning  much  more about designingnewlife-saving  drugs  for  hard-to-treat  cancer patients.“added  Troels Jordansen, CEO of GlycostemTherapeutics BV.

“This outstanding European research consortium aimsto develop a newtargeted,adoptive cellular  immunotherapy for  the treatment  of hard-to-treat  solid tumours without the prior need  of theexpensiveand  complicated processinvolvingthe isolation,  modificationand expansion  of patient’s  own  immune  cells.  It  can  be  a  real  game changer.“  said  Thomas Schirrmann, CEO ofYumabGmbH.

“Combining the key expertiseof the consortium members will bring innovative insights in the active field of immuno-oncology research. We are looking forward to initiating this strategic project  taking  advantage  of  motivating technical  challenges to reach  attractive therapeutic outcomes”said Alban Bessede, CEO of Explicyte.