Onchilles Pharma, a private biotechnology company, is pioneering a novel approach to cancer treatment by targeting the ELANE pathway. This pathway is a recently discovered innate immune mechanism that selectively triggers immunogenic cell death in cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed. This innovative approach offers the potential for pan-cancer therapeutics, effective against various tumor types regardless of their genetic makeup, anatomical origin, or immune status.Which means prostate cancer is a potential candidate as well!

At the 39th Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2024), Onchilles Pharma presented promising preclinical data for their systemically delivered NEU-002 program, further solidifying the potential of this groundbreaking approach.

The preclinical data presented at SITC 2024 highlighted several key advantages of NEU-002:
● Enhanced Specificity and Activity: NEU-002 effectively cleaves CD95, its therapeutic target, while avoiding known off-target substrates, ensuring precise and safe action.
● Selective Cancer Cell Killing: NEU-002 demonstrated its ability to selectively induce immunogenic cell death in primary cancer cells derived from ovarian cancer patients, validating its effectiveness in human tissue.
● Durable Responses: In preclinical studies using the CT26 tumor mouse model, NEU-002 treatment resulted in complete tumor regression and resistance to tumor rechallenge, indicating the potential for long-lasting immune memory formation.

The “bad news” is that even if it is a pan-cancer treatment, phase 1 would not include prostate cancer. But what is positive is that it’s another approach to immune therapy that might be greatly useful…let’s hope!!

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