Gritstone Oncology Enters Into Exclusive Licensing Agreement and Collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan.12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Gritstone Oncology, a cancer immunotherapy company developing next-generation, personalized cancer therapeutics, announced that the company has entered into an exclusive, worldwide licensing agreement and collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK).

Under the terms of the agreement, Gritstone will receive exclusive rights to intellectual property, research data, bioinformatics tools, and know-how that will support the discovery and development of novel tumor-specific neo-antigen (TSNA) based immunotherapies.

Tim Chan, M.D., Ph.D. and Naiyer Rizvi, M.D. – both among Gritstone Oncology's scientific founder team – were part of the team at MSK that developed the intellectual property that Gritstone is licensing. The team's work highlighted the importance of TSNA, and advanced new approaches for their identification.

"The pioneering work that came out of the MSK laboratory brought together several lines of thought and scientific technologies in a distinctive way. The team's research focused on cancer patients who developed highly beneficial immune responses to their tumors after checkpoint inhibitor therapy, and showed that these responses comprised T cell attack on TSNA," said Andrew Allen, M.D., Ph.D., Gritstone Oncology co-founder, president and CEO. "This fundamental insight opens a window into how we might define TSNA for new patients, and increase their chances of developing therapeutic immune responses through TSNA-containing cancer vaccines.

"We are confident that, by pairing their discoveries with our best-in-class scientific team and a systematic discovery and development approach, we will achieve our goal of identifying and creating personalized, therapeutic neo-antigens for each cancer patient," said Allen.

About Gritstone Oncology
Gritstone Oncology is a privately-held cancer immunotherapy company developing next-generation personalized cancer therapeutics. Gritstone brings together distinguished scientific founders, an experienced and diverse management team, a seasoned and successful board of directors, and deep financial backing to tackle fundamental challenges at the intersection of cancer genomics, immunology, and immunotherapy design. The company's initial goal is to identify and deploy therapeutic neo-antigens from individual patients' tumors to develop novel treatments for lung cancer. Gritstone Oncology is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with certain key functions located in Cambridge, MA. The company launched in October 2015 with a Series A financing of $102 million from leading, blue-chip biotechnology investors, including Versant Ventures, The Column Group and Clarus Ventures. More information can be found at www.gritstoneoncology.com.

Media Contact:

Michele Parisi
For Gritstone Oncology
925-864-5028
[email protected]

SOURCE Gritstone Oncology

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http://www.gritstoneoncology.com