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Imugene collaborates with RenovoRx on treatment delivery option for CF33 therapy

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By Imelda Cotton - 
Imugene ASX IMU RenovoRx Oncolytic Virus Therapy Trans-Arterial Micro-Perfusion TAMP
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Clinical-stage immuno-oncology company Imugene (ASX: IMU) and US biopharmaceutical company RenovoRx Inc have formed a strategic research collaboration to optimise the delivery of Imugene’s CF33 oncolytic virus therapy for the treatment of difficult-to-access tumours.

The collaboration is for an initial term of up to four months and will be funded from existing budgets and resources.

Under the terms of the deal, CF33 will be combined with RenovoRx’s proprietary TAMP (trans-arterial micro-perfusion) platform which has been designed to ensure precise delivery of certain therapies to targeted tissues.

The companies will investigate the ability to administer CF33 technology with TAMP for difficult-to-access tumours such as pancreatic and liver cancers.

Delivering CF33 trans-arterially may be of more value to cancer patients compared to traditional administration methods where dense fibrous tissue and lack of blood vessels supplying the tumours have been shown to limit therapy uptake.

Market need

Imugene managing director Leslie Chong said the collaboration could potentially meet a market need.

“We believe the synergy between RenovoRx’s trans-arterial drug delivery system and our CF33 oncolytic virus platform has the potential to facilitate treatment of difficult-to-access cancers and help patients,” she said.

RenovoRx chief executive officer Shaun Bagai was equally keen to progress the partnership.

“Our collaboration with Imugene is an important milestone for RenovoRx as we expand our pipeline from exclusively treating locally-advanced disease to treating metastatic disease with immunotherapy,” he said.

“We look forward to combining our proprietary TAMP platform with Imugene’s CF33 oncolytic virus with the goal of optimising clinical benefits for patients.”

Treatment delivery

In a study presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology 2019 Annual Meeting, RenovoRx demonstrated a 100-fold increase in local tissue concentration using TAMP compared to conventional intravenous and off-the-shelf intra-arterial delivery.

“TAMP’s unique approach to treatment delivery offers the potential to increase an oncology therapy’s efficacy, improve safety and widen its therapeutic window by focusing its distribution uniformly in target tissue,” Mr Bagai said.