Vedantra and Neon Therapeutics extend research alliance to develop impactful cancer therapies

Vedantra Pharmaceuticals, Inc., an immunotherapy company focused on developing products to treat cancer and infectious disease, and Neon Therapeutics, an immuno-oncology company developing neoantigen-based therapeutic vaccines and T-cell therapies to treat cancer, announced today that the companies have extended their non-exclusive research alliance.

"Our albumin-binding amphiphile technologies have the potential to be effective at combating cancer by enhancing the body's natural immune responses, and combining our efforts with Neon's programs could have a significant impact on the development of impactful cancer therapies. Our partnership is aimed at exploring innovative ways to synergistically enhance both of our programs and we are enthusiastically extending the time frame on our research collaboration to continue this exciting work with Neon," said Julian Adams, Ph.D., Executive Chairman of Vedantra.

Under the extended agreement, Vedantra and Neon will continue to build on research exploring the potential benefits of combining Vedantra's cutting-edge, lymph node targeting amphiphile technology with Neon's innovative capabilities in neoantigen vaccine research. The objective of the joint research collaboration is to develop novel cancer vaccine immunotherapies that raise immune responses against neoantigens and allow the body to naturally expand immune cells capable of destroying tumors without harming normal tissues.

"We are glad to extend our collaborative work with Vedantra," said Hugh O'Dowd, President and Chief Executive Officer of Neon Therapeutics. "We are looking forward to building on positive initial data, and further exploring the potential of combining our amphiphile and neoantigen technologies."