Odimma to develop cancer therapy using Touchlight doggybone DNA tech

Odimma Therapeutics has entered into a clinical material supply agreement to develop personalized cancer therapies using Touchlight’s doggybone DNA platform.

Under the terms of the deal, French biotech firm Odimma, will have access to Touchlight’s doggybone DNA (dbDNA) vector technology, which will provide the company with a clinical supply of material to be used in its oncological neoantigen program.

“With a rapid timeline to GMP and high-fidelity process, dbDNA is helping to overcome existing industry bottlenecks and the challenges associated with plasmid DNA,” said Jean-Marc Limacher, managing director of Odimma Therapeutics.

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“The agreement between Odimma and Touchlight is an important step forward to secure Odimma’s clinical development. Not only is Touchlight’s technology producing genetic material with very favorable characteristics for a clinical use but also in a timeframe extremely adapted to a personalized immunotherapy in oncology.”

Additionally, Odimma says it is harnessing the patient’s immune system to identify non-self-targets shown by tumor cells, which enables the treatment of difficult to target tumors.

Odimma claims that due to the complex nature of neoantigen products, Touchlight’s 5-day manufacturing process will strongly support its program development and allow the clinical study to start quickly. According to both firms, the program is anticipated to begin clinical enrolment next year

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed and a spokesperson for Touchlight told BioProcess Insider “there is no specific duration” associated with the agreement. And that “Touchlight is producing the dbDNA on behalf of Odimma [meaning] tech transfer is not part of the current agreement.”

This month, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded Touchlight $2.4 million in funding to further preclinical development of its dbDNA platform. In addition to this, Pfizer licensed Touchlight’s doggybone technology in July for the production of messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics, vaccines, and gene therapies. And two months later, Swiss contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Lonza integrated Touchlight’s technology into its mRNA manufacturing offering.