Merck & Co sees enough in Epitopea to sign deal

Epitopea, an Anglo-Canadian company developing accessible, off-the-shelf RNA-based immunotherapies for cancer, has announced a license and research collaboration deal with US pharma giant Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) to identify Cryptigen tumor-specific antigens (TSAs) in an undisclosed solid tumor.

TSAs are shared, non-mutated, aberrantly expressed antigens that are derived from what were thought to be non-coding regions of the genome or junk DNA.

Under the terms of the agreement, Epitopea will deploy its proprietary CryptoMap platform to identify and provide novel, immunogenic Cryptigen TSAs for a prespecified tumor type.