Building on work at MIT’s Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research, Elicio hopes to begin patient studies in 2020 for pancreatic, colorectal, head and neck cancers.

Elicio Therapeutics, a US-based developer of immunotherapies and vaccines for cancer spun out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), officially launched yesterday with $30m in financing from undisclosed investors. Elicio aims to commercialise effective vaccines and immunotherapies for a range of aggressive solid and blood cancers through its Amphiphile platform, which uncovers pathways for immunogens into the lymphatic system that could enhance the patient’s immune response against cancerous cells. The spinout has already conducted preclinical studies in vivo on mice, and hopes to begin early patient studies in the first half of 2020 on lead vaccines indicated for pancreatic, colorectal, head and neck cancers. Elicio subsequently plans to amass a preclinical pipeline of immuno-oncological candidates including vaccines, cellular therapy vaccines, adjuvants and other immune system-stimulating approaches. The Amphiphile approach was discovered in the lab of Darrell Irvine, professor of materials science, engineering and biological engineering affiliated with MIT’s Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research. Elicio Therapeutics is headed by chief executive Robert Connelly, whose prior life sciences leadership record includes the founding of antibody developer Domantis, sold to pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline for $454m in 2007. Connelly said: “The great early promise of cancer vaccines has fallen well short and exciting new immunotherapies often fail or are limited due to their inability to target and concentrate in lymph nodes, where the immune response is orchestrated. “There is no other platform that can potentially produce highly-effective cancer vaccines and adjuvants while also combining with cellular therapies such as chimeric antigen receptor T-cells, tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes, and natural killer cells to substantially enhance their effectiveness and address their deficiencies.”

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