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The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Amgen have announced two multi-year collaboration agreements aimed at accelerating development of a variety of Amgen's early-stage oncology therapies for patients with leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, multiple myeloma, small-cell lung cancer, and other non-lung cancers with small-cell histologies.
The agreements combine Amgen therapies nearing clinical development or those that have already begun the process with MD Anderson's translational medicine capabilities.
The collaborations will focus on Amgen's bispecific T cell engager (BiTE), chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell and small molecule programs. Amgen is advancing both types of T cell therapies against different targets and, in some cases, the same target.
The five-year collaboration will begin with Phase 1 clinical studies for BiTE antibody constructs and CAR T cell therapies for multiple myeloma and small cell lung cancer. The second agreement spans four years and will study BiTEantibody constructs, CAR T and small molecule treatments in leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes. The collaboration includes multi-institutional pre-clinical and clinical trials, some of which will be led by MD Anderson, which may offer the potential for identifying new biomarkers.
