What is Immunotherapy?

Immunotherapy is a method of treating cancer, autoimmune disorders, and other diseases. Immunotherapy involves the use of specialized molecules called antibodies as a way to signal healthy immune cells to destroy diseased cells. The great strength of antibody therapies is the targeting capability. Diseased cells can be singled-out from healthy cells because antibodies are very specific to what they bind. Scientists can design antibodies that bind only to cancer cells, leaving healthy cells untouched. This means less side-effects than traditional chemotherapy. The last two decades have seen an explosion of various antibody medicines to treat many different cancers and autoimmune disorders. 

Bispecific antibodies work great and are becoming widely used in cancer therapy. However, bispecific antibodies have two major weaknesses that limit their effectiveness. First, cancer cells are pesky and can change what molecules are on their surface. If a cancer cell stops putting the target molecule on its surface, any antibody targeting that molecule becomes ineffective and the cancer cell avoids destruction. The cancer gains “resistance” to the antibody therapy. Second, T-cells can be difficult to turn-off once they have been activated. Over-activation of T-cells leads to a full-body immune response called Cytokine Release Syndrome. Patients may feel ill with flu-like symptoms, but in some cases the full-bodied immune response can serious complications like organ failure or even death.

Multi-Antigen T-Cell Hybridizers ‘MATCH’ technology was designed to overcome both cancer cell resistance and overstimulation of T-cells. Our patented approach was to split the bispecific antibody into two parts – one part targets the cancer cell, and the second part targets the T-cell; however, these two parts are not fixed together like a traditional bispecific antibody. By splitting the bispecific antibody into two components, we have more control over what we target on the cancer cell surface, as well as how much T-cell activation we want to initiate. We can now target multiple molecules on the cancer cell surface simultaneously and fine-tune the dose of the T-cell binder to lessen the full-body inflammation side-effects.

Every patient’s cancer cells have unique mutations that make their cancer one-of-a-kind. In fact, different cancer cells within the same person can have distinct characteristics from one another. The complexity of cancer cell mutations has ushered in a new era of cancer therapies that are less one-size-fits-all and more specifically tuned to a patient’s distinctive cancer cell profile. MATCH provides a platform for multi-specific targeting to ‘match’ a patient’s unique cancer population characteristics while mitigating harmful T-cell activation side-effects.