Candel Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CADL) has unveiled its enLIGHTEN Discovery Platform, which is designed to pioneer the next generation of viral immunotherapy by incorporating a data-driven approach to create new therapeutic assets and further the development of existing drug candidates. The platform integrates artificial intelligence-selected therapeutic payloads into programmable vectors for delivery into the tumor microenvironment.
This innovative approach aims to address the complexity of the tumor microenvironment and the variability in tumor responses to existing treatments. By utilizing large patient datasets, the enLIGHTEN Discovery Platform identifies druggable properties that correlate with clinical outcomes and predicts optimal therapeutic payload combinations in silico. These predicted combinations undergo rapid real-world testing to evaluate their therapeutic effects, followed by the integration of validated multigene payloads into programmable viral vectors designed to meet specific unmet needs in cancer treatment.
The enLIGHTEN immunotherapy candidates represent a novel class of bespoke immunotherapies, each tailored for a specific indication, disease stage, or rationally designed therapeutic combination therapy.
At the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2023 Annual Meeting and the International Oncolytic Virus Conference in November 2023, Candel presented its first experimental immunotherapy candidate from the enLIGHTEN platform: Alpha 201-macro-1. This investigational viral immunotherapy is designed to activate innate immune surveillance. Preclinical data demonstrated that programmable, vector-mediated delivery of a novel gene payload targeting the CD47/SIRPα pathway significantly impedes tumor growth compared to systemic anti-CD47 antibody therapy in a mouse model of breast cancer.
In April 2024, Candel presented late-breaking data at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting on its second immunotherapy candidate from the platform. This candidate has shown the ability to induce organized lymphocyte aggregates resembling tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) within solid tumors, which correlate with positive responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors and better prognoses. To date, no drug has been able to induce therapeutic TLS formation in cancer.
According to Dr. Francesca Barone, CSO at Candel Therapeutics, “With the enLIGHTEN Discovery Platform, we are leveraging our internal expertise and capabilities to design a new class of multimodal therapeutics that can overcome mechanisms of resistance present in the tumor microenvironment and address critical unmet needs for patients with cancer.”
Looking ahead, Candel Therapeutics is collaborating with the University of Pennsylvania in a discovery partnership to leverage enLIGHTEN programmable vectors with therapeutic payloads to potentially overcome barriers to Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. This collaboration will explore the ability of Candel’s novel viral immunotherapies to enhance the effects of the University’s CAR T-cell therapies in solid tumor models.
Candel Therapeutics’ enLIGHTEN Discovery Platform signifies a major step forward in the field of cancer immunotherapy by offering a systematic, iterative approach that leverages human biology and advanced analytics to create new viral immunotherapies for solid tumors. The platform’s success could pave the way for more effective treatments for various forms of cancer, addressing significant unmet needs and potentially improving patient outcomes.
