Engimmune Therapeutics strikes 'fast-forward' micro-fluidics collaboration with Swiss innovator CSEM

• Collaboration with CSEM will speed up identification of suitable soluble TCR candidates
• Engimmune's executive team will be presenting at Biotech Showcase in San Francisco in January

BASEL, Switzerland, Dec. 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Engimmune Therapeutics AG ("Engimmune"), a world-class developer of soluble T-cell receptor drugs ('TCRs') to treat solid tumours, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a collaboration with the Swiss Technology Innovation Center CSEM to accelerate the identification of safe and effective drugs using Engimmune's unique platform.

The collaboration will leverage CSEM's high-throughput microfluidics technology to speed up the nomination of soluble TCR drug candidates with enhanced affinity, potency, and safety profiles.

Engimmune's platform technologies – which comprise genome editing, deep sequencing, functional screening, and AI – provide a head start in the hunt for suitable soluble TCR candidates.

CSEM's expertise in microtechnologies and droplet microfluidics will enable Engimmune to accelerate clinical candidate selection by performing safety screening at increased throughput and depth.

"Ruling out potentially harmful soluble TCRs at an early stage is vital to ensure resources are not wasted pursuing unsuitable candidates," said Felix Kurth, Group Leader Biosystems Engineering with CSEM. The collaboration is supported by a grant from Innosuisse, the Swiss Innovation Agency.

Lars Nieba, CEO of Engimmune Therapeutics, said: "We are identifying targeted, highly potent 'off-the-shelf' soluble TCRs, with breakthrough potential for treating solid tumour cancers. Our cutting-edge proprietary platform technologies, which combine protein engineering with AI, enable us to rapidly identify and engineer stable, soluble, multi-specific TCRs that have extremely high affinity for target cancer antigens. But finding a soluble TCR that very strongly binds to a cancer-specific tumour antigen, activates a cytotoxic response, and is also very safe can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Our collaboration with CSEM will help greatly to speed up that process and de-risk the development of candidates by quickly ruling out those with potential toxicities."

Dr Nieba and Engimmune's CSO Dr Rodrigo Vazquez-Lombardi recently gave an update on the company's approach to the in-house web publication of leading research university ETH Zürich, from which the company was spun out in 2021. The article can be found here: Redirecting immune cells against cancer | ETH Zurich.

News of the collaboration with CSEM comes ahead of Dr Nieba and Dr Vazquez-Lombardi presenting Engimmune's technologies and immuno-oncology assets at the Biotech Showcase in San Francisco on January 8.

About Engimmune Therapeutics AG

Engimmune Therapeutics is a world-class developer of highly targeted, highly potent 'off-the-shelf' soluble T-cell receptor drugs (TCRs) to treat solid tumours. Its cutting-edge proprietary platform technologies enable it to rapidly identify and engineer stable, soluble, multi-specific TCRs that have extremely high affinity for target cancer antigens and trigger a potent and durable anti-cancer T-cell response, without causing damage to healthy cells (i.e., with low cross-reactivity). Engimmune is also able to exploit its technology to identify novel, low competition TCR targets that address both cell surface proteins and the 85% of intracellular proteins that antibodies cannot access. Its unique platforms – which utilise genome editing, deep sequencing, functional screening and machine learning / artificial intelligence approaches - give Engimmune the ability to overcome, with one toolset, the full range of efficacy and safety challenges that have historically limited the full potential of TCR therapies. Engimmune was founded in 2021 as a spin-off of ETH Zurich from technologies developed by Dr. Rodrigo Vazquez-Lombardi and Professor Sai Reddy. Seed round investors include Novo Holdings A/S and Pureos Bioventures. For more information, please visit www.Engimmune.com.

SOURCE Engimmune Therapeutics AG