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Enumeral, Merck to predict clinical drug response with human-driven immune profiling platform

Enumeral Biomedical Holdings has signed an oncology-focused collaborative study agreement with Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, through a subsidiary.

The collaborators will use Enumeral’s human approach to interrogating the tumor microenvironment in colorectal cancer tissues obtained directly from patients in order to identify functional cellular responses to immuno-oncology therapies being developed by Merck.

Enumeral’s human-driven immune profiling platform may increase the probability of finding rare immune cells associated with disease or drug response through improved efficiency and sensitivity. Studying rare cells obtained directly from human patients for their functional responses can potentially lead to identification of those patients responsive to a therapy, while elucidating the underlying cellular basis for such a response.

"Our platform provides the opportunity to understand broadly how immunotherapy works in humans, based on its ability to evaluate the function of critical rare immune cells in human clinical samples," said Arthur H. Tinkelenberg, Ph.D., President and CEO of Enumeral.

"The ability to determine cellular functions within these samples, we believe, has the potential to accelerate discovery and development of immunotherapies in oncology. We are very pleased to be working with Merck, one of the leaders in the field of antibody immunotherapy, to tackle these important clinical problems."

Under the terms of the agreement, Enumeral will receive R&D funding and is eligible to receive undisclosed future milestone payments if certain goals are achieved. Merck has exclusive rights to data related to its proprietary compounds that are generated from the studies.

Enumeral’s human-driven immune profiling platform is enabling and accelerating the discovery and development of novel antibody immunotherapies, or immunomodulators. The core technology behind Enumeral’s platform was developed at and licensed from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Enumeral performs measurements on single immune cells in order to mine the immune system’s rich collection of cells for information that is difficult to obtain using other methods and that may guide the development of effective therapeutics and diagnostics.

The efficiency and sensitivity provided through our platform increases the probability of finding rare immune cells associated with disease or drug response. Studying rare immune cells obtained directly from human patients for their functional responses can potentially lead to selection of best-in-class antibody drug candidates that may have a higher likelihood of successful development.

Such knowledge generated from our platform is being applied to better understand which drug candidates might work in which patients, and, at what stage of disease.