Pharmaceutical firms develop natural killer cells to treat cancer

Pharmaceutical companies Gilead Sciences and Dragonfly Therapeutics recently announced their joint work on a number of new immunotherapeutic treatments based on the involvement of natural killer (NK) cells, Businesswire reports.

Dragonfly’s NK cell activators are a new mechanism capable of affecting a wide range of cancers, including complex tumours and inflammation.

Under the agreement, Gilead will receive an exclusive worldwide license from Dragonfly for their research immunotherapy program (DF7001). DF7001 is able to trigger the destruction of cancer cells - even those associated with fibroblast cancer, as well as cancer stem cells, the report says.

After completing preclinical studies, Gilead will receive the rights to develop and commercialise additional NK cell engager programs using the Dragonfly Tri-specific NK Engager (TriNKET™) platform.

Flavius Martin, MD, Executive Vice President, Research at Gilead said: “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.”

“We look forward to working with the Gilead team to advance new treatment options where there is a high unmet need”, added Bill Haney, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dragonfly.