NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Argos Therapeutics announced today that it will collaborate with Personalis to study the mechanism of action of its investigational immuno-oncology drug rocapuldencel-T.
Rocapuldencel-T — formerly AGS-003 — is a personalized immunotherapy based on Argos' Arcelis platform, which uses RNA isolated from a patient sample to program autologous dendritic cells to target only disease-specific antigens. It is being tested in a number of clinical trials, including a Phase III study for metastatic renal cell carcinoma.
Under the terms of the deal, Personalis will serve as Argos' primary genomic analysis provider, using its ACE ImmunoID next-generation sequencing platform to analyze tumor samples collected during clinical development of the Arcelis technology for renal cell carcinoma.
"The Personalis technology is a key component to our efforts to further understand the mechanism of action of our lead product, rocapuldencel-T for the treatment of advanced renal cell cancer," Argos CSO Charles Nicolette said in a statement. "We hope to demonstrate that rocapuldencel-T specifically targets neoantigens found only in the patients' tumors to explain why we observe tumor regression without autoimmunity to the unaffected contralateral kidney."
Additional terms were not disclosed.
The deal with Personalis comes about six months after Argos partnered with Adaptive Biotechnologies to study patient immune responses to rocapuldencel-T.