EXACT Therapeutics AS announced that the Norwegian Research Council has awarded EXACT-Tx NOK 16 million to support the research of immunotherapy responses in solid tumours with Acoustic Cluster Therapy (ACT®). The research project is in collaboration with three renowned academic partners; Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)(Norway), Institute of Cancer Research (ICR)/Royal Marsden Hospital (UK) and Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen)(USA). ACT® is currently in clinical development for combination with standard of care chemotherapeutic agents.

Several preclinical studies have shown that ACT® can provide a remarkable increase in the therapeutic efficacy of this class of cancer drugs. The aim of the awarded research project is preclinical development of ACT® combined with immuno-oncology (IO) agents for treatment of solid cancers. IO-agents, and especially checkpoint inhibitors, represent an emerging and important class of cancer drugs that can provide long-term response in some cancer patients.

Unfortunately, only a minority of patients respond to immunotherapy and the efficacy may partly be hampered by insufficient delivery to target tissues. Research into novel drug delivery systems is therefore of great importance. The awarded research project comprises six preclinical work packages investigating ACT® with checkpoint inhibitors for treatment of breast cancer, colon cancer and pancreatic cancer.

The primary objective is to demonstrate preclinical proof of concept for treatment of one or more of these diseases. The project end point is performing a clinical trial within the IO segment.