Sanquin enters license agreement with Neon Therapeutics for peptide-MHC assay technology

The technology utilizes ultraviolet light-based exchange for fast and simple generation of large series of peptide-MHC complexes for in vitro and ex vivo detection and characterization of antigen-specific T cells. This technology was invented in part by Neon co-founder Ton Schumacher, Ph.D., senior member of the Department of Immunology and deputy director of The Netherlands Cancer Institute. Neon Therapeutics plans to utilize the rapid UV-exchange tetramer technology to assay immunological activity for its cancer vaccines and T cell therapies, which will use both fully personalized and shared neoantigen targets. This technology is co-owned by Sanquin and The Netherlands Cancer Institute, and both institutes have jointly developed the peptide-MHC based assays and reagents in recent years.

“Sanquin is proud that its proprietary technologies support the development of pioneering immunotherapies, which could empower the patient’s own immune system,” said Roel Melsert, managing director at Sanquin.

“Neon Therapeutics is honored to leverage the leading work of our co-founder Dr. Schumacher and his colleagues and to utilize this technology across our portfolio, including in our upcoming Phase 1b clinical trial evaluating our personalized neoantigen vaccine, NEO-PV-01,” said Cary Pfeffer, M.D., interim chief executive officer of Neon Therapeutics. “Licensing such leading technologies will ensure Neon Therapeutics remains at the forefront in tumor immunology and neoantigen biology, ultimately benefiting patients by allowing us to optimize anti-tumor responses.”