MOONSHOT - TOPIC 372 - DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF NON-MOUSE REAGENTS TO ENABLE PRECLINICAL DEVELOPMENT OF NOVEL THERAPEUTICS.

As described in NIH/NCI Topic No. 372, the preclinical development of cancer therapeutics, including the recent trend and focus on cancer immunotherapies, is evolving from the traditional use of mouse models to the use of other animal models including canine, rat, and minipig. Of particular interest are reagents to be used in canine models of spontaneously occurring cancer that would facilitate the usefulness of dogs with such cancers in developing and evaluating human cancer therapeutics. The creation of such reagents would add value to this unique immune competent model by enabling studies to be performed in dogs with cancer that shed light on potential correlative biomarkers that may then inform human clinical trial design. Topic No. 372’s solicitation describes its short-term goal as “the creation of a set of reagents that will enable additional preclinical testing of novel therapeutics” and its long-term goal as enabling “better demonstration of the utility of novel therapeutics for administration in both humans and companion animals.” In Vetigenics’ response to this topic, we will address both the NIH/NCI stated short-term as well as long-term goals through the development of reagents that (i) assess the effects of therapeutic interventions in canine companion animal models of human cancer, and (ii) reagents that actually comprise the therapeutic intervention that is being assessed. To this end, Vetigenics will develop and commercialize recombinant canine-derived antibodies for both in vitro and in vivo use as a renewable and reproducible source of fully validated materials that will expand the toolbox of canine reagents for translational research. As one of the first applications of its technology, Vetigenics will approach the important problem of immune checkpoint inhibition, a therapeutic modality that has led to remarkable complete and durable clinical responses in human cancer patients