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Vedanta Biosciences Expands Network of Clinical Collaborations Supporting Development of Microbiome Therapeutics for Cancer ImmunotherapyVedanta Biosciences, an affiliate of PureTech Health (LSE: PRTC) developing a new category of therapies for immune-mediated and infectious diseases based on rationally designed consortia of human microbiome-derived bacteria, today announced new translational medicine collaborations in cancer immunotherapy with Leiden University Medical Center and the University of South Alabama (USA) Mitchell Cancer Institute. The Company also today announced the expansion of its translational medicine collaboration in cancer immunotherapy with NYU Langone Health and its Perlmutter Cancer Center. Researchers at these institutions have been collaborating with Vedanta Biosciences to analyze microbiome clinical data from interventional checkpoint inhibitor studies to identify microbiome signatures associated with response to immunotherapy and key mechanisms through which the gut microbiota modulate immunotherapeutic responses. "Data from our ongoing clinical collaborations in melanoma show that gut bacteria signatures could help determine if a cancer immunotherapy will work," said Bruce Roberts, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Vedanta Biosciences. "We're pleased to expand our research collaborations into others forms of cancer, with the ultimate goal of identifying ways to change the microbiome to increase the proportion of patients and types of cancer patients who respond to immunotherapies." Under the agreement with Leiden University Medical Center, Vedanta Biosciences will work in collaboration with Ellen Kapiteijn, M.D., Ph.D., and Ed Kuijper, M.D., Ph.D., to understand the role of the microbiome in immunotherapeutic responses against a variety of cancers, including melanoma, head and neck, and bladder. The new collaboration with the USA Mitchell Cancer Center, led by Art Frankel, M.D., will analyze associations between the gut microbiome and responses to checkpoint inhibitor treatment in melanoma and cancers of the bladder and kidneys. Building on the existing translational work with NYU Langone in melanoma led by Jeffrey S. Weber, M.D., Ph.D., and Melissa Wilson, M.D., Ph.D., the expanded agreement adds collaborations in bladder cancer and lung cancer, led, respectively, by Arjun V. Balar, M.D., and Leena Gandhi, M.D., Ph.D. Vedanta Biosciences' immuno-oncology programs include lead product candidate, VE800, hich has been shown in preclinical models to activate CD8+ T cells, a type of white blood cell that is the predominant effector in cancer immunotherapy, improve CD8+ T cell tumor infiltration, and improve survival in several cancer models in combination with checkpoint inhibitors. Vedanta anticipates filing an investigational new drug application (IND) for this candidate in 2018.
About Vedanta Biosciences Vedanta Biosciences' scientific co-founders have pioneered the fields of innate immunity, Th17 and regulatory T cell biology, and include Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov (Professor of Immunobiology at Yale), Dr. Alexander Rudensky (tri-institutional Professor at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute, the Rockefeller University and Cornell University), Dr. Dan Littman (Professor of Molecular Immunology at NYU), Dr. Brett Finlay (Professor at the University of British Columbia) and Dr. Kenya Honda (News - Alert) (Professor, Keio University School of Medicine). Vedanta is backed by Seventure, Invesco Asset Management, and Rock Springs Capital and has collaborations with leading institutions including Janssen Biotech, Inc., NYU Langone Health and its Perlmutter Cancer Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, University of Tokyo, Keio University, RIKEN, and the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute.
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