Nanobiotix, a late clinical-stage nanomedicine company pioneering new approaches to the treatment of cancer, recently presented positive clinical and preclinical data from the ongoing immuno-oncology programs. These data were presented at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), held from November 8 to 12, 2017 in National Harbor, Maryland, USA.
Nanobiotix’s lead product, NBTXR3, has a universal physical mode of action which is designed for the local destruction of tumors. In addition to the physical destruction of cancer cells, recently published data suggested that NBTXR3 generates immunogenic cell death which could trigger a specific immune response to attack tumors.
The new clinical data and pre-clinical data indicate that NBTXR3 could play a key role in oncology and could become a backbone of immuno-oncology.
In this study, tumours from the ongoing two-arm Phase II/III clinical trial were examined both pre- and post-treatment in patients with locally advanced soft tissue sarcoma who had received either NBTXR3 with radiotherapy (more than 10 patients) or radiotherapy alone (more than 10 patients).
The results observed in the post-treatment examination of patients who received both NBTXR3 and radiotherapy showed a significant increase of CD8+ T cells and a marked increase of CD3+, PD-1 and CD103+ immune cell infiltration. In contrast, there was no difference observed between pre- and post-treatment examination when patients received radiotherapy alone.
Furthermore, a functional analysis of genes up-regulated in NBTXR3 plus Radiotherapy arm showed an enrichment of cytokines, immune checkpoints, T cell activation, and dendritic/macrophages markers.
These promising data confirm that NBTXR3 induces a specific adaptive immune pattern and brings substantial changes to the tumour immune profile in patients with soft tissue sarcoma. As such, it may convert the tumor immunologically and be effectively combined with immunotherapeutic agents across oncology.
These data strengthen the relevance of using NBTXR3 in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors. In September 2017, Nanobiotix announced the Company’s plan to conduct its first clinical trial with NBTXR3 in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors in the U.S., with a multi-arm trial targeting a sub-population of advanced lung, and head and neck cancer patients.
Data generated from colorectal and breast cancer tumor models suggest that NBTXR3 triggers immunogenic conversion of the tumor microenvironment regardless of the molecular characteristics of the tumor. These data confirm the broad potential of NBTXR3 as a primer of the immune response.
