Cantab Pharmaceuticals of the UK has signed an agreement with Stanford University of the USA to collaborate on a research program to develop new immunotherapeutic products for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The collaboration will focus on developing therapeutics based on Stanford's proprietary technology relating to activation of T-lymphocytes, and gives Cantab an option to acquire worldwide rights to the technology.
The Stanford researchers, led by Edgar Engleman, have become the first to clone a new receptor on human activated T-cells, called OX40, as well as a natural ligand which binds to it. The receptor has not been identified on any other cell type to date. Alan Munro, scientific director at Cantab, said that "since OX40 has been detected only on activated T-cells, it may represent a target for immunotherapy in which T-cells are specifically destroyed or inactivated to ameliorate diseases." The first part of the collaboration aims to identify the diseases in which OX40 may provide a targeting mechanism, involving screening for the presence of the receptor on normal and diseased human tissues.
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