Syntekabio (KOSDAQ: 226330), an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based drug development company, announced that it has signed a MOU with Metaclipse Therapeutics, an Atlanata, GA USA based biotechnology company developing immunotherapies for cancer and vaccines for infectious disease, for joint research on development of a personalized immunotherapy for cancer.

Through this MOU, Syntekabio plans to support Metaclipse in conducting research on neoantigen identification for its MembrexTM personalized cancer vaccine platform.

Metaclipse’s Membrex™ vaccine is a personalized immunotherapy for solid tumors comprising a patient tumor antigen source combined with the company’s proprietary membrane-linked biological adjuvants. The company has received approval from US FDA to proceed with a phase 1 clinical trial and will work with Syntekabio to leverage its proprietary NEO-ARS® platform to identify neoantigen candidates that generate patient-specific anti-tumor immune responses.

Michael Coleman, CEO of Metaclipse, said, “The TMV-based cancer vaccine has the advantage of presenting a broad array of potential neoantigens derived from the patient’s tumor, thereby providing a personalized immunotherapy for cancer. With this MOU agreement, we plan to identify neoantigen candidates, which play a critical role in activating the patient’s immune system and provide the potential for tailoring patient-specific booster doses and developing off-the-shelf MembrexTM therapies with broad application.”

Jongsun Jung, CEO of Syntekabio, said, “We are delighted to conduct joint research with Metaclipse, a cancer vaccine specialist in the clinical development stage. We are open to collaboration with companies specializing in the development of cancer vaccines and immunotherapies and will contribute in various ways so that domestic and foreign vaccine manufacturers in clinical stages can achieve positive results.”

The Phase 1 clinical trial is to verify the safety and immunological activity of Metaclipse’s tumor membrane vesicle-based vaccine, termed MembrexTM. Syntekabio will contribute to the clinical trial by analyzing genomic data from tumor sample of clinical trial subjects and identifying personalized cancer neoantigens using NEO-ARS®, a neoantigen prediction AI platform.

Metaclipse's cancer vaccine incorporates a broad array of tumor antigens in the form of tumor membrane vesicles prepared from the patient's own tumor. This type of vaccine has the advantage of providing a broad array of antigen candidates minimizing selection bias that is present in some other approaches. Through the joint research, the two companies expect to be able to identify the most immunologically relevant antigens by utilizing Syntekabio's NEO-ARS® platform.

After this agreement, the two companies plan to comprehensively analyze Syntekabio's neoantigen prediction results and Metaclipse's clinical trial results to evaluate the correlation between the neoantigen profile and treatment response and to conduct joint research to identify potent individual neoantigens that demonstrate high immunogenicity among the many antigens loaded in the MembrexTM vaccine.

For more information about Syntekabio and its offering, please visit STB CLOUD (syntekabio.com)