Rubius Therapeutics presents preclinical data for RTX-240

Rubius Therapeutics announced the presentation of new preclinical data supporting its lead clinical oncology program, RTX-240, at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer's Annual Meeting. The meeting is being held virtually from November 9-14, 2020. RTX-240 is an allogeneic, off-the-shelf Red Cell Therapeutic that is engineered to mimic the human immune system by stimulating adaptive and innate immunity to generate an anti-tumor immune response. Rubius Therapeutics is currently enrolling patients in the Phase 1/2 clinical trial of RTX-240 for the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory or locally advanced solid tumors. In addition, RTX-240 is being evaluated in a second Phase 1 arm of the clinical trial for the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia. RTX-240, an Allogeneic Engineered Red Blood Cell Expressing 4-1BBL and IL-15TP, Promotes NK Cell Functionality In Vitro and In Vivo: RTX-240 is an allogeneic, off-the-shelf cellular therapy product candidate that is engineered to simultaneously present hundreds of thousands of copies of the costimulatory molecule 4-1BBL and IL-15TP on the cell surface in their native forms. RTX-240 is designed to stimulate innate and adaptive immunity by activating NK cells and T cells inside the patient's body to generate an anti-tumor immune response. RTX-240 preclinical data demonstrated: RTX-240 led to increased CD8 T cell and NK cell expansion and activation in vitro compared to the combination of a 4-1BB agonist antibody plus recombinant IL-15 which was directly correlated with the percentage of 4-1BBL and IL-15TP expressed on the cell surface; RTX-240 expanded CD56dim NK cells, a cell population with high cytotoxicity; RTX-240 promoted NK cell-killing of a myeloid leukemia cell line, K562, and this was accompanied by increased NK cell degranulation and activation; A murine surrogate for RTX-240, mRBC-240, promoted significant expansion of CD8 T cells and NK cells in vivo in a murine model of colorectal cancer; mRBC-240 demonstrated potent antitumor activity in a B16F10 melanoma model that was directly correlated with the expansion of terminally differentiated NK cells in the tumors/