TCR T Cells - Medigene AG

Empowering T cells with tumor-specific T cell receptors (TCR-T cells)

Patient-derived T cells are modified for adoptive T cell therapy with selected and pre-clinically tested T cell receptors (TCRs). For well-characterized tumor antigens, the modified T cells, so-called TCR-T cells, are generated using Medigene’s End-to-End Platform based on knowledge obtained in more than 30 years of research experience. TCR-T cells can potentially treat broad patient populations suffering from various types of cancer with high unmet needs.

Medigene’s “end-to-end” platform offers unique advantages:

1

Originating from Medigene’s “end-to-end” platform, TCRs with selected specificities are isolated and characterized and subsequently assessed to potentially treat various types of blood cancers and solid tumors.

2

Isolated TCRs are of natural origin and are chosen to have optimal affinities and hence the TCRs do not need mutational engineering to improve their capacity to find and bind tumor cells.

3

The “end-to-end” platform can deliver TCRs recognizing a variety of different tumor antigens, representing either common antigens shared by tumors or patient-individual neoantigens.

4

TCRs for both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells can be generated, which recognize peptide fragments presented by different HLA class I and HLA class II alleles, providing greater potential for effective treatments to larger numbers of patients.

5

Our proprietary “end-to-end” platform allows the development of optimized TCR-T cells using product enhancement and/or development optimization tools.

How adoptive T-cell therapy works

Structure and function of T cell receptors

T cells are distinguished from other lymphocytes (types of white blood cells) by the presence of T cell receptors (TCRs) on the cell surface. TCRs allow T cells to identify cancer targets, e.g. tumor-specific antigens presented on the surface of the tumor cells. TCRs are multi-protein complexes composed of several invariant CD3 elements (these elements are important for the expression of and signalling by the TCR at the cell surface, and without them, the TCR cannot locate to the surface of the T cell or transmit the activation signal to the nucleus) and two different chains, a TCR-alpha chain (“α”) and a TCR-beta chain ( “β”).

Each TCR chain has a variable (V) region linked to a constant (C) region. Together, the paired Vα and Vβ regions provide a single antigen-binding site. The paired variable regions of the TCR represent a well-defined structure on the surface of T cells, which determines TCR specificity and contributes to the entire repertoire of antigen-specific T cells. The TCR on a T cell recognizes complexes of peptide plus HLA (human leukocyte antigen), a type of cell surface protein that helps the immune system distinguish the body’s healthy cells from diseased pathogen-infected or tumor cells.