Immunocore to Present IMCgp100 Clinical Trial Data at AACR Annual Meeting 2015

OXFORD, England, April 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

~ A Phase I/IIa study of IMCgp100: partial and complete durable responses with a novel first-in-class immunotherapy for advanced melanoma ~

Immunocore Limited, a world-leading biotechnology company developing novel biological drugs to treat cancer, viral infections and autoimmune diseases, today announced that clinical trial data from the Phase I/IIa study of its lead programme IMCgp100, will be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2015. The meeting will take place from 18-22 April 2015 in Philadelphia, USA.

IMCgp100, in the Phase I/IIa trial, showed partial and complete durable responses in patients with advanced melanoma.

The IMCgp100 clinical data will be presented by Mark Middleton MD, Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at the University of Oxford, and Principal Investigator for the study. Professor Middleton will present the data on April 19th 2015 at 2:05pm, in the Terrace Ballroom I (400 Level), Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Immunocore's Phase I/IIa trial, conducted in the UK and USA, is designed to optimize the dosing regimen and maximise the efficacy of IMCgp100 while maintaining the favourable safety profile.

Notes for editors 

About Immunocore 

Immunocore is one of the world's leading biotechnology companies, with a highly innovative immuno-oncology platform technology called ImmTACs. ImmTACs are a novel class of biologic drugs based on the Company's proprietary T cell receptor (TCR) technology which have the potential to treat diseases with high unmet medical need including cancer, viral infections and autoimmune diseases.  Immunocore has a pipeline of wholly-owned and partnered ImmTAC programmes with robust clinical data, based on decades of world-leading scientific innovation in the discovery of HLA targets and T cell receptor technology and validated by collaborations with world-leading pharmaceutical companies.  Immunocore aims to leverage the utility of its platform across a wide range of indications to become a Premier Biotech company and world-leader in its field.

Immunocore's world-leading science and strong IP position has attracted major pharmaceutical companies including Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, MedImmune, the biologics division of AstraZeneca, via discovery collaborations, as well as a co-discovery and co-development partnership with Lilly.  Founded in 2008 originally out of Oxford University and headquartered outside Oxford, Immunocore now has more than 140 staff. Immunocore is well funded and owned by a group of long-term private investors. For more information, please visit http://www.immunocore.com

About melanoma  

Melanoma is a form of skin cancer that accounts for less than five per cent of cases but causes the vast majority of skin cancer deaths. Incidence rates are increasing more rapidly than for any other cancer and by 2019 there are forecast to be around 227,000 cases diagnosed worldwide each year^[1]. Unlike other common cancers, melanoma has a wide age distribution.

Patients who are diagnosed early are treatable with surgical resection but for many, the disease will recur. Once melanoma progresses to late stage disease and becomes metastatic the prognosis is poor, with a median survival period of around eight months for patients with advanced melanoma. A number of agents have been approved for melanoma recently and these have shown significant responses in patients, though long term response durability in the majority of patients remains elusive.

About IMCgp100 and ImmTACs 

Immunocore's proprietary technology is focused on small protein molecules called ImmTACs (Immune mobilising mTCR Against Cancer) that enable the immune system to recognise and kill cancerous cells.

Immunocore's ImmTACs, a new class of drug with ultra-high affinity for intracellular cancer targets, are synthetic, soluble T cell receptors (TCRs) that recognise diseased cells containing disease specific targets. The ImmTACs enable circulating T-cells to selectively identify and kill diseased cells.  The ImmTAC platform is unique and has very high specificity and potency as well as broad applicability to a wide range of intracellular targets.  ImmTACs can access up to nine-fold more targets than typical antibody-based therapies, including monoclonal antibodies.

TCRs naturally recognise diseased cells and Immunocore's world-leading competitive advantage is its ability to engineer high affinity TCRs and link them to an antibody fragment that activates a highly potent and specific T cell response to recognise and destroy cancer cells.

The most advanced ImmTAC, IMCgp100, is currently in Phase IIa clinical trials for the treatment of late stage melanoma. Following completion of a Phase I study at the end of 2013, which showed promising results with an encouraging safety profile and early signs of efficacy, Immunocore initiated a Phase IIa study to optimize the dosing regimen of IMCgp100. Immunocore has a growing internal pipeline of ImmTACs addressing many different cancer types and has developed a broad database of intracellular cancer targets.  

ImmTACs can be manufactured in a high-yield, fully-scalable and low cost microbial system. They are extremely stable with a multi-year shelf-life.

[1] Datamonitor report DMHC2628

For more information, please contact:
Immunocore
Eliot Forster, Chief Executive Officer
T: +44-(0)1235-438600
E: [email protected]

Consilium Strategic Communications
Mary-Jane Elliott/Jessica Hodgson/Chris Welsh/Laura Thornton
T: +44-(0)203-709-5700
E: [email protected]

SOURCE Immunocore Limited