Innate Immune Checkpoints & Activation Pre-Focus Day

Tuesday, May 25 2021

8:00 am Online Networking Coffee

Synopsis

Grab a quick cup of tea or coffee from the comfort of your own home office and jump straight into your opportunity to connect with new contacts from active companies in the field and exchange digital business cards.

8:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

9:00 am Engaging the Innate Immune System Opens New Opportunities to Address Remaining Unmet Need in Hematologic and Solid Tumor Indications

9:25 am Natural Killer Cell Checkpoints

9:50 am Macrophage Repolarization as a Therapeutic Strategy in Cancer

Synopsis

  • Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are critical cells corroborating cancer progression and often preventing responses to therapies across multiple cancer types
  • Verseau is utilizing its proprietary all human drug discovery and translation platform to develop a pipeline of macrophage repolarizing therapeutics
  • Macrophage repolarization induces a pro-inflammatory state, that in turn activates T cells and attracts other immune cells to generate a powerful antitumor response
  • Given multifaceted nature of macrophage biology, we anticipate the need to direct reprogramming via highly differentiated novel molecular pathways. Data on Verseau lead monoclonal antibody programs will be presented

10:15 am Speaker Q&A

10:35 am Virtual Speed Networking

Synopsis

Grab a quick cup of tea or coffee from the comfort of your own home office and jump straight into the speed networking session. This is your opportunity to connect with new contacts from active companies in the field and exchange digital business cards. Network and form lasting connections through this exclusive virtual speed networking!

Successful Clinical Translation of Novel Therapeutic Modalities

11:35 am TNFa Blockade Unleashes Innate Tumor Immune Response by Downregulating Mucin 4 & Rendering Anti-HER2 Therapies Effective

  • Roxana Schillaci Principal Researcher, Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine (IBYME), CONICET

Synopsis

  • The membrane glycoprotein mucin 4 (MUC4) expressed in cancer cells induces an immune-suppressive tumor microenvironment
  • Soluble TNFα blockade with INB03, downregulates MUC4 expression
  • In HER2+ breast cancer INB03 overcomes anti HER2 therapies resistance by downregulating MUC4 expression and unleashing an innate immune response

Innate Cell Targets Delivering Efficacious Drug Candidates

11:50 am Targeting the Innate Immune Checkpoint CD47-SIRPα Axis

  • Bob Uger Chief Scientific Officer, Trillium Therapeutics

Synopsis

  • The CD47-SIRPa axis suppresses macrophage phagocytosis and has emerged as an important innate immune checkpoint.
  • There are a number of agents targeting this pathway in clinical development, including antibodies, decoy receptors and bispecifics.
  • Emerging clinical data will be discussed.

12:15 pm Engineering the Myeloid Cell Cancer with Innate Immune Receptor CAR’s

  • Yuxiao Wang Co-founder & Director of R&D, Myeloid Therapeutics

Synopsis

  • Pattern recognition receptors and innate signaling pathways can be engineered into CARs
  • Applying innate immune cell activation to cell therapy and in-vivo macrophage cell targeting to treat cancer

 

12:40 pm Speaker Q&A

  • Roxana Schillaci Principal Researcher, Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine (IBYME), CONICET
  • Bob Uger Chief Scientific Officer, Trillium Therapeutics
  • Daniel Getts Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Myeloid Therapeutics

12:55 pm Closing remarks from chair

1:05 pm Close of Pre-Focus Day

Day One