Eutilex and the National Cancer Center (NCC) have co-developed a strategy to increase the therapeutic effect of immunotherapy for solid cancer sharply.
While existing immunotherapy showed a high cure rate for some hematologic cancers, it did not fully demonstrate its therapeutic effect in solid cancers, which account for 95 percent of cancer patients, due to the strong suppression of the body's immune response, Eutilex said.
Therefore, researchers have used a method to create an environment in which the body can easily accept immune cell therapy by co-administering a chemotherapeutic agent, such as cyclophosphamide, before administering immune cells, it added. The Eutilex-NCC joint research team introduced an additional post-treatment process for administering anti-CD4 antibodies to improve the method.
By removing several types of immunosuppressive cells, including regulatory T cells, the joint team made the immunosuppressive drug have an excellent anticancer effect. Using this new treatment method, they confirmed a therapeutic effect that significantly exceeded the efficacy of the existing treatment.
All animal models of melanoma post-treatment with anti-CD4 antibody survived at 60 days, and 50 percent of them remained cured until day 80, while all animals that used the existing treatment method died before 60 days, the company added.
Eutilex stressed that the researchers also confirmed the mechanism of improving the effect of immune cell therapy as they could verify that the expression level of interleukin-18 receptor in immune cells significantly increased and found that this plays a crucial role in improving the therapeutic effect.
"While research so far has focused on the effect of immunotherapy itself, this study proves that the therapeutic effect can dramatically increase by controlling the immune environment in the patient's body," Professor Kim Seon-hee at NCC said.
Eutilex CEO Kwon Byeong-se also said, "Eutilex is cooperating with various research institutes to develop methods to increase the therapeutic effect of immunotherapy drugs for solid cancer."
Based on the research results recognized in world-class academic journals, the company will successfully develop its immunotherapies, Kwon added.
The results of the research were published in the latest issue of Nature Communications.