Innovation Forum Oxford attracted more than 300 researchers, investors and industry experts focused on Immunotherapy

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Author: Andrew King

Andrew King is a haematology registrar and Wellcome clinical research fellow, currently undertaking a DPhil at the University of Oxford. He undertook medical training at Oxford University graduating in 2007 and since then, has worked as a doctor in the Thames Valley Region. He is interested in innovation in healthcare.

On the evening of the 11^th April, more than 300 researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts gathered for Innovation Forum Oxford’s Immunotherapy event at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. The event was timely given the emergence of immunotherapy as a major force in oncology treatment and was designed to unite the different sectors of academia, clinical medicine and industry to foster collaborations.

Vincenzo Cerundolo, Professor in Immunology at Oxford University and Consultant Physician, opened the meeting with an excellent overview of immunotherapy from its earliest origins to the field as it is now. Dr Robert Wilkinson, Director of Oncology Research at MedImmune Ltd, followed with a description of Medimmune’s work and some of the exciting molecules which have emerged from his group.

Following this, Paresh Vyas, Professor of Haematology at the University of Oxford described the development of a novel immunotherapy targeted against the CD47 antigen; this has had remarkable efficacy in pre-clinical models and is now in an early clinical trial in Oxford. The audience then heard more specifically about ImmTACs as an exciting targeted monoclonal cancer therapy from Dr Bent Jakobsen, CSO of Immunocore Ltd. Dr Martin Pule, a Consultant Haematologist, researcher at UCL and founder of Autolus Ltd, then described some of his work with chimeric antigen T cells targeting solid tumours, particularly a rare type of lymphoma called peripheral T cell lymphoma.

The event then moved on to hear about a new venture: Vaccitech. Professor Sarah Gilbert, one of the cofounders, described how this has arisen from research carried out in Oxford and will target prostate cancer via a new vaccine.

Finally there was a panel discussion chaired by Professor Vyas. Dr Lucinda Crabtree (Senior Investment Analyst, Woodford Investment Management LLP), Dr Eliot Forster (CEO, Immunocore Ltd) and Prof Mark Middleton (Lead Cancer Clinician at Oxford University Hospitals and Deputy Director of Cancer Research UK Oxford) made up the panel. Questions from the audience stimulated discussions around the future of innovation in immunotherapy, particularly focusing on the political and economic barriers faced and how these will be overcome.

The event concluded with drinks, snacks and a valuable opportunity to build links between industry, academia, clinicians and investors in order to foster productive translational collaborations.

For more information regarding Innovation in Immunotherapy, please contact [email protected]

Upcoming events:

The Oxford branch of the Innovation Forum will host an event on medical imaging in autumn. The WHAT IF accelerator will take place over summer and see local start-up ventures compete, under the guidance of mentors. The best will be put forward to contend in a global final for a sizeable investment prize. The annual Innovation Forum – Leaders Conference 2016 will take place in Cambridge on the 21^st-22^nd September.

For more information, please visit: www.inno-forum.org

_{Authors: Dr Andy King, Arron Thind, Mike Leeming.}_{Credit for photo: Lars Hanssen}

As a haematologist, I treat patients with cancerous illnesses such as leukaemia and lymphoma as part of my job every day. Treatment generally consists of a blunderbuss approach: give toxic drugs that kill cells (chemotherapy) at a high enough dose to eradicate the cancer, but not too high such that there are unacceptable side effects. This empirical, rather unscientific approach has seen some great successes – childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia for example, has seen cure rates improve from 0% in the 1960s to close to 90% now. But I, like all doctors that look after cancer patients, am aware that there should be a better way. Seeing patients incapacitated by nausea, young women losing their hair and both men and women being rendered infertile as a side-effect of chemotherapy can be exceptionally distressing, both for patients and for the doctors that have poisoned them with the aim of curing their cancer. Moreover, the treatment sometimes doesn’t work meaning we have put the patients through a whole raft of side-effects for no benefit.

So what are the other ways of treating cancer apart from chemotherapy? Harnessing the power of the immune system to fight cancer, (immunotherapy) has been an aim of scientists and doctors for decades. In actual fact, immunotherapy is nothing new. When treating B cell lymphomas, I have always prescribed Rituximab alongside chemotherapy, a monoclonal antibody directed against B cells which improves survival rates by about 20%. And haematologists have been using the immune system to eradicate residual leukaemia since the 1960s using bone marrow transplants, even if they weren’t aware of it when they initially started performing such treatments. For the most part though, immunotherapy treatment proved disappointing in the 1990s and early part of this century.

Over the last five years however, there has been a revolution. Science magazine hailed immunotherapy as its scientific breakthrough of the year in 2013 based upon remarkable clinical trials and pre-clinical work, and such excitement has continued. Patients with melanoma who were enrolled in the first trials back in 2006 and given a few months to live are still alive after 10 years. Children with leukaemia resistant to every chemotherapy drug are receiving a single dose of their own immune cells, modified in the laboratory, which then eradicates every trace of the disease. From a skeleton area, which only a few scientists were working on, immunotherapy has blossomed into a multi-billion dollar industry that has the potential to transform cancer therapeutics as we know it.

Author: Andrew King

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