The immune system has more cytotoxic potential and versatility than can be achieved with any single-target drug. Immunocore’s ImmTAC technology enables the immune system to recognise and kill cancer cells. ImmTACs are innovative bifunctional proteins that combine high-affinity monoclonal T cell receptor (mTCR) targeting technology with a clinically-validated, highly potent therapeutic mechanism of action. The same technology platform can be applied to chronic viral diseases such as HIV.

Targeting

mTCRs target diseased cells by recognising disease-associated peptide antigens derived from intracellular and secreted proteins, as well as  membrane-bound, proteins. This is an advantage over conventional monoclonal antibodies which are restricted to targeting transmembrane proteins accessible from outside the cell. However, cells infected with cancer and chronic viral infections express only low levels of antigen, and therefore are able to escape detection by the immune system. To overcome this “antigen blindness”, Immunocore has developed proprietary technology to create stable soluble proteins with the same recognition properties as the cell-bound TCRs and has enhanced their binding affinities a million-fold using phage display.  The resulting high-affinity mTCRs can be used to target tumours. Read more »

Effector

Unlike antibodies, mTCRs have no in-built effector function to kill cells. Immunocore has linked the mTCR to an anti-CD3 scFv domain. Anti-CD3 mediated T cell redirection is a clinically-validated, highly potent therapeutic mechanism of action. Read more »