Gritstone bio : 2021 Annual Report

grit /grit/

noun

a blend of passion and determination

to achieve a specific and worthwhile goal

passion

DRIVEN BY INNOVATION

Since our founding, we have been driven by a deep passion to develop novel vaccines. Today, we are advancing multiple innovative product candidates to prevent and treat infectious diseases and cancer.

ONCOLOGY

Immuno-oncology represents one of the most significant advances in the history of cancer treatment. Yet, cures remain elusive and many patients with cancer experience only modest clinical benefit. Gritstone's approach in oncology is focused on identifying a new class of critical tumor targets, and then leveraging its novel and innovative vaccine vectors and antigen payloads to elicit differentiated, durable and potent immune response. Within oncology, we have two clinical programs that are advancing into late stage trials: an individualized immunotherapy, GRANITE, and an "off-the-shelf" shared immunotherapy, SLATE. Our collective experience with cancer immunotherapy suggests that as these vaccine programs move into patients with earlier stage of disease, immune responses may be stronger and the potential benefits of our approach could be further accentuated.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES

In early 2021, we expanded our programs to include infectious diseases with the announcements of a second-generationCOVID-19 vaccine program (CORAL) and a partnership with Gilead Sciences to develop a curative, therapeutic vaccine for people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In CORAL, we have demonstrated the potential for our unique vaccine candidates to generate both robust neutralizing antibody and T cell responses. Along with potentially helping the world address current and future variants of concern, this marks a credible first step toward developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine. We see great potential for our vaccine platform in treating and preventing viral disease and expect to continue expanding the infectious disease franchise in the years ahead.

determination

OPTIMIZING OUR TECHNOLOGIES

Our technologies enable rapid discovery, development, optimization and manufacturing of novel vaccines for oncology and infectious diseases. Independently and with our partners, we are advancing a portfolio of product candidates with the aim of improving patient outcomes and eliminating disease.

OUR PLATFORM

Our technologies, capabilities and know-how drive the discovery and advancement of our programs. Our best-in-class antigen/epitope prediction model, EDGETM, has enabled rapid vaccine candidate discovery in oncology and infectious diseases, and our innovative vectors and antigen payloads have shown to be capable of inducing differentiated immune response. We are leading the development of vaccines that incorporate the novel self-amplifying mRNA (samRNA) vaccine vector and have the in-house manufacturing capabilities and expertise to quickly develop vaccines of the highest standard.

PARTNERSHIPS

We have multiple collaborators for our COVID-19 vaccine program, CORAL. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding to support our preclinical work, and today CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) and NIAID (part of the National Institutes of Health) are each involved in one of our four ongoing Phase 1 clinical studies. Additionally, we entered into a license agreement with the La Jolla Institute for Immunology to access validated SARS-CoV-2 epitopes.

Under our oncology pipeline, we have a collaboration with 2seventy bio, an affiliate of bluebird bio, to identify tumor-specifictargets and natural T cell receptors directed to those targets for use in 2seventy bio's established cell therapy platforms.

The HIV program arose from a partnership with Gilead Sciences to research and develop a vaccine-based immunotherapy as part of Gilead's efforts to develop curative treatments for patients living with HIV. The IND for this program was cleared in December 2021. Gilead is responsible for conducting the Phase 1 study for the HIV-specifictherapeutic vaccine.