PhoreMost and Oxford Biomedica enter gene therapy discovery collaboration

• Collaboration to develop next-generation CAR-T cell therapies with improved efficacy and durability
• PhoreMost’s SITESEEKER^® platform will identify active peptides to be deployed within Oxford Biomedica’s LentiVector ^® delivery system

Cambridge and Oxford, UK, 09 November 2020: PhoreMost Limited, the UK-based biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing drugs against intractable disease targets, and Oxford Biomedica plc (LSE:OXB) (“Oxford Biomedica”), a leading gene and cell therapy group, today announced that they have entered into a discovery collaboration to develop next-generation CAR-T cell therapies. Financial details of the agreement are not disclosed.

PhoreMost will deploy its in-house expertise and next-generation phenotypic screening platform, SITESEEKER^®, to identify therapeutic candidates for Oxford Biomedica’s LentiVector^® gene therapy delivery system. The programme will initially focus on CAR-T therapy and aims to develop next-generation cell therapies with significantly improved efficacy and durability.

Dr Chris Torrance, CEO, PhoreMost, said: “This collaboration with Oxford Biomedica, a global pioneer in cell and gene therapies, is further recognition of the power of SITESEEKER^®, offering an exciting opportunity to discover and accelerate the development of clinical stage products. The natural complementarity between SITESEEKER^® and LentiVector^® offers great promise for this and future collaborations between the two companies.”

John Dawson, CEO of Oxford Biomedica, said: “We are excited to apply this next-generation technology to our LentiVector^® platform. The collaboration has the potential to deliver more effective CAR-T therapies, and we look forward to working closely with the PhoreMost team.”

SITESEEKER^® exploits protein shape diversity to find functionally active peptides linked to any chosen disease setting, significantly enhancing the power of phenotypic screening and translation into therapeutic modalities. Based on proprietary protein interference, or ‘PROTEINi^®’, technology, SITESEEKER^® is able to systematically probe the entire proteome in a live cell environment to identify and exploit novel drug targets.

Oxford Biomedica is a world-leading pioneer of cell and gene therapies. Its LentiVector^® platform enables the successful development of breakthrough gene and cell-based medicines, and through collaborations with pharmaceutical partners, has delivered the first FDA and EMA approved CAR-T cell therapy.

ENDS