UK biotech to trial cancer treatment based on ‘super donor’ immune cells
Lift BioSciences hopes to use cells from people with unusually strong immune system
What if one answer to treating cancer was not a blockbuster drug but a way of boosting the immune system to kill tumours and stop them from spreading?
A UK-based bioscience company will test that novel approach in clinical trials set to begin in Ireland next year, saying it offers hope to patients for whom other therapies have failed.
Lift BioSciences, whose chair Antonin de Fougerolles helped develop the mRNA technology Moderna used in its Covid-19 vaccines, believes it could have its treatment on the market by the end of the decade.
In the past decade, cancer treatment has been transformed by therapies that harness the immune system to fight tumours. These include checkpoint inhibitors and CAR T therapy, which rely on healthy white blood cells called neutrophils to detect and kill cancerous cells that have escaped the rest of the immune system, said Alex Blyth, Lift BioSciences chief executive.
Lift’s approach would intravenously transplant healthy neutrophils, cultured in a lab from stem cells from “super donors” who have the best potential immune responses. Lift said it had a pool of about 500,000 people with no family history of cancer, whose neutrophils were exceptionally good at tackling cancer, and that it could grow such cells “like baker’s yeast”.
“We are giving cancer patients Usain Bolt immunity to fight off these cancers and become responsive again to cancer therapies,” Blyth told the Financial Times.
Lift’s approach focuses on the “innate” immune system — defences such as neutrophils that everyone is born with. Either alone or together with drugs that target the “adaptive” immune system — which develops over time through exposure to pathogens — “we can cure cancer in more patients”, Blyth predicted.
Checkpoint inhibitors, such as Merck’s blockbuster Keytruda and AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi, prevent cancer cells from disabling the immune response to tumours. Blyth believes Lift’s Immuno-Modulatory Alpha Neutrophils (IMAN) therapy could work in cases that do not respond to checkpoint inhibitors.
IMAN therapy could also replace or complement chemotherapy, or be used preventively, Blyth said, adding that he expected it to be safe and well tolerated because transfusions of granulocytes — a class of white blood cells that include neutrophils — are already used in some leukaemia patients and others vulnerable to infection.
Lift plans to begin human clinical trials in patients with advanced cervical, head and neck cancers in Galway next year — but to do that, it must secure another £22.5mn. Blyth said the company was targeting venture funds and family offices.
The therapy could cost about £10,000 per patient to produce, but would retail at about £100,000 per patient, similar to checkpoint inhibitors, he said.
The company chose Ireland for the trial because it offers high-level support: in July it won a €12mn government grant to fund a partnership with the University of Galway and Hooke Bio, an Irish medical R&D tools company.
Blyth sold his house and medical consultancy to found his business after his mother died from pancreatic cancer. Lift has already raised £10mn in a Series A funding round.
He predicts initial results from clinical trials in 2027 and “you could look at something being made available to patients by 2030-31”.
He said he owned the patents and had no direct competitors but “the biggest delay risk is the anti-biotech investing environment”, adding that since Covid, biotech was “no longer on trend”.
“We can produce this on an infinite off-the-shelf scale,” Blyth said. “Cell therapy is the future and we will show that.”