Gilead, Dragonfly to Advance Immunotherapies in Oncology

Gilead and Dragonfly Therapeutics recently collaborated to advance several of Dragonfly’s novel natural killer (NK) cell engager-based immunotherapies for oncology and inflammation indications.  

Under the terms of the agreement, Dragonfly will grant Gilead an exclusive, worldwide license for the 5T4-targeting investigational immunotherapy program, DF7001. Gilead will also have the option to develop and commercialize additional NK cell engager programs using Dragonfly’s Tri-specific NK Engager (TriNKET) platform.  

DF7001 activates and directs NK and cytotoxic T-cell killing against cancer cells. While 5T4 is a protein expressed in cancer and stomach cells that supports tumor growth associated with poor prognosis in several cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, and head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC).  

“We are excited to partner with Dragonfly as we expand our pipeline with innovative NK cell engager programs. Using our scientific framework to focus our efforts, we are growing our portfolio with assets that have complementary MOAs and strong scientific rationale for combination opportunities,” Flavius Martin, MD, executive vice president of research at Gilead, said in the announcement.  

“We look forward to working with the Dragonfly team to explore novel NK engager treatments across diverse therapeutic areas to address some of the greatest gaps in care for cancer and inflammatory diseases,” Martin continued.  

Current cancer immunotherapy approaches focus on T-cell-mediated anti-tumor immunity, including checkpoint inhibition and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy.  NK cells are a group of lymphocytes (white blood cells) vital to the immune system. When combined, NK and T cells can attack cancer cells but have different tools for destroying tumor cells.  

In April 2020, Gilead, Kite, and oNKo-innate partnered to uncover cancer immunotherapies and engineered cell therapies focused on NK cells.  

oNKo-innate is a discovery-stage biotechnology company in Australia dedicated to targeting identification and pre-clinical immuno-oncology drug development. Gilead will leverage the company’s genome-wide screening techniques and its technology platform to discover novel immune cell targets that enhance NK cell anti-tumor immunity and create cell therapies.