Project description
Attenuated bacteria for the treatment of lung cancer
Harnessing the power of the immune system to fight cancer is a very attractive strategy and many approaches have been developed in this endeavour. Funded by the European Innovation Council, the PB_LC project capitalises on the development of attenuated lung bacteria as a means of stimulating T cell infiltration in the tumour. These bacteria are engineered to secrete cytokines locally in the tumour for further immune stimulation. The PB_LC project will establish manufacturing and formulation processes alongside an inhalation delivery approach for the product. Researchers will evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics and efficacy of this live biotherapeutic towards clinical use in patients with non-small cell lung carcinomas.
Objective
Non-small-cNon-small-cell carcinomas (NSCLC) represent 80-85% of the worldwide lung cancer cases, which are the leading cause of cancer-related death. Several clinical trials have indicated better survival rates in NSCLC patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) antibodies targeting PD-1/PD-L1 or CTLA4. However, since many patients display innate or acquired resistance to these therapies, there is a pressing need to discover methods to help them overcome the resistance. Founders of Pulmobiotics, a spin-off created as a result of an ERC PoC project, have shown their ability to engineer and produce a non-pathogenic strain of the mild human lung pathogen Mycoplasma pneumoniae (the MycoChassis), used to stimulate the immune system to promote T cell infiltration in the tumor. The developed MycoChassis also secretes different immunomodulators (IL2, IL12, and Flt3L) in a sustained and local manner directly to the lung tumor, overcoming their high systemic doses of toxicity in patients. Pulmobiotics has further optimized the MycoChassis to meet safety requirements, engineered a development candidate product (PB_LC) for lung cancer treatment, and developed analytical methods to analyse its replication and biodistribution in vivo, critical regulatory requirements. The specific objectives of this EIC Transition proposal are to establish processes for manufacturing, formulation, and inhalation delivery of the product that meet GMP standards; to do preclinical regulatory activities (including efficacy, safety, and pharmacokinetics/ pharmacodynamics), as well as to advance the market and business preparation for the commercial exploitation of the first product of the company, PB_LC. Achieving the project objectives will pave the way to take PB_LC into first-in-human clinical trials and license the product to reach the market. The use of PB_LC will positively impact the quality of life of NSCLC patients by increasing the efficiency of currently used immunotherapies.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine pneumology
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology immunotherapy
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2022-TRANSITION-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
08007 Barcelona
Spain
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
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