Tessa Therapeutics, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy Enter Strategic Alliance

Tessa Therapeutics and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (Parker Institute) today announced the establishment of a multi-year strategic alliance to combine their capabilities to jointly advance research in the field of cancer immunotherapy. The two partners will collaborate on unique clinical and pre-clinical projects in order to develop novel cellular therapy and immuno-oncology combination treatments.

The Parker Institute’s model brings together top cancer research institutions to share resources, data, and technology, accelerate research through unifying and managing clinical trial design, and conduct multi-center clinical trials. Tessa brings its T cell therapy expertise to the partnership. Tessa’s Virus Specific T Cell technology holds the promise of becoming a treatment platform for a wide variety of cancer indications and the company’s international production and logistics network enables the rapid roll-out of large-scale, multi-center cellular therapy trials. Tessa is currently conducting the world’s first FDA Phase III cancer T cell therapy trial.

This is the Parker Institute’s first major agreement with a cellular therapy partner. The Parker Institute will continue to build key industry relationships critical for the success of its unique model.

Fred Ramsdell, Ph.D., Vice President of Research at the Parker Institute, said, “Tessa has built both an impressive team as well as a very advanced suite of capabilities in the immuno-oncology realm. They have recognized many of the challenges to cellular therapies and are addressing them in thoughtful and science driven ways – and laying the foundation for the next generation of therapies. Few organizations have the commitment and vision of Tessa, and we are excited to help bring these attributes to our Parker Institute network and to further the goal of effective therapeutic development.”

Andrew Khoo, co-founder and CEO of Tessa Therapeutics, said, “The Parker Institute is driving innovation in the field of cancer immunotherapy by bringing together the best immunologists, cancer research institutes, and industry partners globally. We feel a strong sense of alignment in terms of our vision and ultimate goals. At Tessa, we are excited to join this network and together leverage our strong translational capabilities to build further on Tessa’s core VST platform. As a partner of the Parker Institute and a member of the Institute-led consortium, we are committed to a range of exciting collaborative projects, working towards our shared vision of a world without untreatable cancers.”

John E. Connolly, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Tessa Therapeutics, added, “The Parker Institute enables a first-of-its-kind model for collaboration among world-leading academic and industry partners to accelerate research into innovative cancer immunotherapies. We are delighted to be their first cell therapy partner and look forward to leveraging on the Institute’s hub and spoke model for collaborative studies to design next-generation immunotherapeutic technologies and to translate research into treatments that will transform patients’ lives for the better.”