Natural Killer: Biotech licensing collaboration to develop Imperial research
A new cell therapy, developed at Imperial and licensed to an Australian biotechnology company, could transform the treatment of blood cancers and other diseases.
When Professor Tassos Karadimitris and his team at Imperial’s Centre for Haematology succeeded in harnessing a rare type of immune cell, the ‘natural killer’ T cell, to develop an immunotherapy, the specialist teams in Enterprise worked with him to help take the research forward through commercialisation.
Enterprise’s 130-strong team of experts provide support for translational research and promote the commercialisation of new technologies in medicine and other fields. They put several years of commercial and legal work into establishing multiple routes for commercial development of the research.
The intellectual property was licensed to Arovella Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on developing new medical treatments, which is using its expertise and financial resources to progress the new therapy into clinical trials over the next one to two years. The goal is to develop new treatments range of conditions, beginning with blood cancers such as leukaemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma.
Alongside the licensing agreement, Professor Karadimitris has been engaged through Imperial Consultants to be the chair of Arovella's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) for the programme, so that he and his team will continue to be fully involved in the development of the research.