Phio Pharmaceuticals Presents Preclinical Study Showing INTASYL™ Treatment of NK Cells More than Doubles Ability to Kill Tumor Cells

Phio Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biotechnology company whose proprietary INTASYL™ RNAi platform technology is designed to make immune cells more effective in killing tumor cells, has announced pre-clinical data demonstrating that using INTASYL to silence TIGIT and CBL-B may be used to improve the anti-tumor response of NK cells, creating a more effective cell therapy for treating cancer.

NK cells are the body’s first line of defense against cancer. Unlike T cells, NK cells can recognize and kill tumor cells without prior exposure. Incorporating INTASYL’s RNAi treatment into ex vivo NK cell expansion protocols prior to adoptive cell therapy (ACT) is a strategy to reduce the expression of inhibitory proteins such as TIGIT or CBL-B to improve anti-tumor response.

“These data demonstrate the power of the INTASYL platform to enhance the activity of adoptive cell therapies to better address cancer,” said James Cardia, Phio’s VP of Discovery. “Furthermore, these studies in addition to recent studies with PH-762 and PH-894, highlight the multiple applications of INTASYL, for both direct therapeutic applications as well as in combination with ACT therapy. INTASYL has the broad applicability to silence not only extracellular targets (TIGIT) but also intracellular targets that antibodies cannot address (CBL-B).”