Novartis and Surface Oncology enter oncology research collaboration

Novartis has announced a strategic alliance and licensing agreement with Surface Oncology to grow its immune-oncology pipeline

The agreement gives Novartis access to four pre-clinical programmes that target regulatory T cell populations, inhibitory cytokines and immunosuppressive metabolites in the tumour microenvironment.

These programmes will be explored as monotherapies and in combination with other complementary therapies in Novartis' immuno-oncology and targeted therapy portfolios.

Mark Fishman, president of the Novartis institutes for biomedical research, said: "We have several programmes now in the clinic that aggressively address the complexities of the tumour microenvironment.

“This alliance with Surface Oncology is another building block in our strategy to develop a portfolio of programmes that we believe will lead the next wave of immuno-oncology medicines."

At the start of 2015 Novartis launched a new immuno-oncology research team led by cancer vaccine pioneer Glenn Dranoff.

This team has built a broad portfolio of clinical and pre-clinical programmes focused on stimulating the body's immune system to combat cancers through targeting critical regulatory steps in the anti-tumour immune response.

Today the company's immuno-oncology portfolio includes novel checkpoint inhibitors, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CART) technology, myeloid cell targeting agents, the T cell stimulating factor IL-15, STING agonists that enhance immune recognition of cancers and adenosine receptor antagonists and TGF-beta blocking antibodies that overcome immunosuppression in the tumour microenvironment.

Seven of these candidates are already in clinical trials and five more are expected to enter the clinic individually and as combinations by the end of 2016.