Posted: 27 September
Cartherics, a biotechnology company developing immune cell therapies for the treatment of cancer, together within partner institutions, has received $5.4M Medical Research Futures Fund (MRFF) grant to develop a new approach to enhance cancer therapy by engaging the patients’ own immune system to complement CAR cell therapy.
The company, in partnership with The Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Central Adelaide Local Health Network and Cell Therapies Pty Ltd, will use the grant to advance clinical research for its immunotherapy solution in solid cancers, which creates ‘off-the-shelf’ functionally enhanced natural killer (NK) cells to treat many patients with a single product and can also engage the patient’s own macrophages in their immune system in tumour destruction.
The grant, for the consortium’s “Gene modified pluripotent stem cells to generate and empower innate immune cells against poor prognosis cancers” application, was awarded under the MRFF Clinical Trials Activity Initiative category. This category is focused on funding research projects moving into clinical trials that test the effectiveness of therapies and treatments and create the evidence needed to improve clinical practice as well as help patients with ovarian and gastric/oesophageal cancers access trials relevant to their health circumstances.
To date, Cartherics has successfully raised more than $30M from international and Australian investors, plus more than $8M in grant funding, including a Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) grant, which will be completed in November 2022.
