Rise Therapeutics Secures Funding to Develop a Novel, Immunologically Enhanced Probiotic Medicine for Treating Cancer
Rockville, MD. Rise Therapeutics, a company that develops innovative immune therapies, announced today that it initiated a new program to develop a novel, immunologically enhanced microbiome drug for the treatment of cancer. This product candidate, R-5780, engages key immune pathways regulated by the microbiome to enhance the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy to treat cancer. Coinciding with the timing of this release, Rise has secured funding to support key product development initiatives for the program.
Published studies show that the microbiota of cancer patients are correlated with their response to ICI drugs, but the mechanisms of specific commensal bacteria strains are not well elucidated and limit their translation into new therapeutics. While defined microbiome commensal strains may offer an alternative to prevent and treat cancer in combination with checkpoint immunotherapy, many strains are not suitable for human use and the mechanism of action is difficult to characterize making drug development challenging. However, recent studies suggest that improved probiotics engineered to carry specific recombinant biological targeting agents can be an effective approach to engage immune regulatory pathways. Indeed, Rise’s recent results demonstrate that engineering or ‘reprogramming’ of probiotics to recombinantly express and deliver specific immune regulatory proteins to the intestinal tract can impact immune responsiveness of cancer and greatly enhances the effects of ICI therapy.
“The immune system is an important defense mechanism that protects us against pathogens and cancer, and nowhere in the body is the immune system more ‘vibrant’ than in the intestinal tract where the majority of our microbiota reside,” says Dr. Gary Fanger, President and CEO of Rise Therapeutics. “R-5780 is a first-in-class, orally administered cellular medicine that delivers a key molecule that is able to engage immunological pathways that synergize and make immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy more effective.”
About Rise Therapeutics
Rise Therapeutics is a privately held biotechnology company located in Rockville, Maryland. Rise is pioneering synthetic biology methodologies to develop novel microbiome-based cellular medicines. Rise Therapeutics leverages its unique and proprietary TriPartite X (TPX) approach to deliver targeted biologics orally, a novel step forward in the context of protein-based medicines. As a platform drug delivery approach, TPX is ideally suited to deliver any biological therapy orally and, in the context of Rise’s therapeutics product development interests, targeting immunology regulated by the gut microbiome is a key breakthrough that gives Rise a competitive drug development advantage. Rise is currently focused on developing treatments for autoimmunity, inflammatory disease, infection, and cancer. These disease areas represent a large unmet need, both in the United States and around the world. For more information about Rise Therapeutics, please visit www.risetherapeutics.com.