Description du projet
Une thérapie cellulaire innovante pour les tumeurs solides
Près d’un tiers des cancers de l’ovaire développent une résistance aux agents cytotoxiques contenant du platine, tels que le cisplatine et le carboplatine. Financé par le Conseil européen de l’innovation, le projet MACOV entend remédier à ce problème médical en élaborant une approche immunothérapeutique fondée sur les macrophages. L’idée est de mettre au point un produit commercial composé de macrophages allogéniques porteurs de thérapies ciblées destinées aux cellules cancéreuses. Le projet examinera l’efficacité de ces cellules dans plusieurs modèles animaux de cancer de l’ovaire résistant au platine. De plus, les chercheurs étudieront la pharmacocinétique et la pharmacodynamique de ce produit cellulaire et mèneront une évaluation toxicologique afin de le préparer à un essai clinique de phase I.
Objectif
Resistance to platinum-based chemotherapy is a major clinical challenge in ovarian cancer. About 300,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year and the number of deaths is estimated at 180,000 worldwide each year. Ovarian cancer metastasizes early in its development, often before it's diagnosed. Ovarian cancer treatment involves surgery with frontline platinum-based chemotherapy. As many as 15-30% of patients with ovarian cancer have primary platinum-resistant or refractory disease. The recurrence of ovarian cancer is now considered a sign of an incurable disease (it becomes platinum-resistant).
The project MACOV aims to develop an innovative allogeneic, “ready-to-use” macrophage-based therapy for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. This is a ground-breaking, first in class therapy that shows very high efficacy in multiple solid tumors of unmet medical need.
These cells are equipped with targeted therapy drugs complexed with the carrier protein ensuring their stability in the carrier cell. The protein-drug complex is transferred specifically to cancer cells. The whole concept of this cell therapy is based on the groundbreaking scientific discoveries of MDC (Macrophage-Drug Conjugate). Two European Research Council (ERC) grants were received to study the molecular basis of the discovered mechanism - in 2016 and 2020. In 2018 this project was selected to be promoted as one of the 10 European projects during ERC 10th Anniversary.
The MACOV project will generate of complete efficacy data package for the pre-clinical development of MDC-735 product, consisting of efficacy in multiple animal models for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, PK, PD and toxicology study as well as consolidate IP and validate business case. The result of the project will be a validated cell therapy product for platinum-refractory ovarian cancer, tested for effectiveness and ready-to-use for the Phase I clinical trial.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC) Main Programme
Régime de financement
HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-BasedCoordinateur
01-510 WARSAW
Pologne
L’entreprise s’est définie comme une PME (petite et moyenne entreprise) au moment de la signature de la convention de subvention.