Friday, March 29, 2019
Phio Pharmaceuticals Corp. announced today that it has entered into a research collaboration with Glycostem Therapeutics BV to explore the potential synergies of using Phio's self-delivering RNAi technology (sd-rxRNA®) in combination with Glycostem's proprietary Natural Killer-cell (NK-cell) generation technology (oNKord®) to develop cellular immunotherapies for cancer treatment with enhanced efficacy and/or safety.
The companies' research teams will collaborate and examine the applicability of Phio's sd-rxRNA technology to be integrated into Glycostem's processes to produce NK-cells with the ultimate goal to further improve Glycostem's cellular immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer patients.
Dr. Jan Spanholtz, CSO of Glycostem commented, "One of the research focuses of Glycostem is novel oNKord® products with improved functions. Towards that goal we have already established several collaborations, and we are glad to expand our efforts in this field in collaboration with Phio Pharmaceuticals. We believe their proprietary self-delivering RNAi technology can provide new and more effective ways for expanding and differentiating NK-cells. In addition, their technology can help overcome immune checkpoints or other immunosuppressive roadblocks that NK-cells may encounter, which may further enhance the efficacy and safety of our cellular therapies."
Dr. Gerrit Dispersyn, President and CEO of Phio Pharmaceuticals, added, "We are excited to partner with Glycostem, a leading cellular immunotherapy company. Their focus on safe and cost-effective allogeneic approaches with the promise of providing 'off-the-shelf' cellular products very much aligns with our vision on the use of innovative technology to create a next generation of very powerful adoptive cell therapies against various cancers."
