BriaCell Therapeutics Corp. announced the publication of mechanism of action data for its next-generation personalized off-the-shelf immunotherapy platform, Bria-OTS+, in a study conducted in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The research, published in JCI Insight, a highly rated peer-reviewed journal, provides scientific validation for the company's semi-allogeneic cellular immunotherapy approach.
NCI Study Validates Immunotherapy Mechanism
The collaborative study with the NCI, the US federal government's principal agency for cancer research and training, demonstrated how semi-allogeneic dendritic-cell vaccines function at the molecular level. According to Jay A. Berzofsky, MD, PhD, Senior Investigator of NCI and coauthor of the publication, "The study demonstrated that semi-allogeneic dendritic-cell vaccines recruit alloreactive CD4+ T-cell help through mismatched MHC class II molecules, which in turn strengthens antigen-specific CD8+ T-cell responses against tumors."
The publication, titled "Enhancing dendritic cell cancer vaccine by allogeneic MHC class II expression and Treg depletion," provides mechanistic insights into how BriaCell's platform technology achieves its anti-tumor effects in cancer patients.
Core Design Principles Confirmed
Miguel Lopez-Lago, PhD, BriaCell's Chief Scientific Officer, explained that the findings validate the fundamental design strategy behind Bria-OTS+. "This publication validates the core design principle behind Bria-OTS+: partial HLA matching enables effective tumor-antigen presentation, while planned HLA mismatching drives robust CD4+ helper responses," he stated.
The research findings directly support BriaCell's pipeline of allogeneic immunotherapies and reinforce the company's strategy to deliver scalable treatments for cancer patients. The mechanism involves using partial HLA matching to ensure effective presentation of tumor antigens while incorporating planned HLA mismatches to stimulate strong helper T-cell responses.
Clinical Trial Progress
The mechanistic data align with clinical results from BriaCell's ongoing Phase 1/2a study evaluating Bria-OTS in patients with metastatic recurrent breast cancer. According to Dr. William V. Williams, BriaCell's President and CEO, "These data are consistent with the encouraging clinical results we recently reported in our Phase 1/2a study in metastatic breast cancer and provide important insights into the mechanism of action of our cellular immunotherapy platform technology."
The Phase 1/2a study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT06471673) includes both monotherapy dose escalation and checkpoint inhibition combination dose expansion cohorts. The company recently progressed into the dose expansion phase of the trial.
Platform Technology Overview
Bria-OTS represents a next-generation, off-the-shelf personalized immunotherapy based on BriaCell's lead candidate Bria-IMT. The platform is designed as a novel personalized, semi-allogeneic cellular immunotherapy that may address urgent unmet medical needs for patients with cancer.
The technology combines the benefits of personalized medicine with the scalability of off-the-shelf treatments, potentially offering a more accessible approach to cancer immunotherapy. BriaCell positions itself as a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel immunotherapies to transform cancer care.
