Latest news with #TCR
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Adaptimmune, seeking to stay afloat, sells off cell therapies
This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily BioPharma Dive newsletter. Struggling cancer cell therapy developer Adaptimmune is backing out of commercial drug manufacturing, announcing Monday it will sell its approved medicine Tecelra and two late-stage assets to US WorldMeds in a deal worth up to $85 million. The deal is a lifeline for Adaptimmune, which in March initiated a strategic review because of 'substantial doubt' about the company's continued solvency. The transaction will send all employees involved in commercialization and development of Tecelra, as well as the clinical-stage lete-cel and uza-cel, to US WorldMeds. Per deal terms, Adaptimmune will receive $55 million upfront and could later receive $30 million in additional payments based on achievement of regulatory and commercial milestones. After the sale, Adaptimmune will retain possession of two T cell directed therapies now in preclinical studies to support human testing. In a regulatory filing, Adaptimmune said that, after the deal, it will cut its remaining workforce by 62% — layoffs that follow a 29% headcount reduction earlier this year that was forecast to save $300 million over four years. Chief Medical Officer Elliot Norry and Chief Commercial Officer Cintia Piccina will leave the company Aug. 8, while Chief Scientific Officer Joanna Brewer will leave Aug. 31. Tecelra gained Food and Drug Administration accelerated approval in 2024 for some patients with synovial sarcoma, a type of solid tumor. It was the first so-called T cell receptor, or TCR, cell therapy approved in the U.S. A half dozen cell therapies that use a different 'CAR-T' technology were approved earlier, but have so far only approved effective in blood cancers. Adaptimmune's innovation didn't translate into sales, however. Adaptimmune reported just over $4 million in product revenue in the first quarter of 2025, overshadowed by the company's nearly $29 million in research and development spending. It held $41 million in cash and equivalents at the end of March. 'After an extensive review of all strategic alternatives available to Adaptimmune we are convinced that this transaction represents the best path forward for Adaptimmune, our patients and stakeholders,' said CEO Adrian Rawcliffe in a statement. Adaptimmune shares fell by two-thirds following the announcement, changing hands at about 10 cents apiece in afternoon trading. While arguing Adaptimmune's deal was a 'net positive' due to its solvency concerns, Mizuho Securities analyst Graig Suvannavejh wrote in a client note that the size of the deal was 'disappointing.' Suvannavejh added that, even with the revenue from the deal and associated cost cuts, 'it is still unclear to us [the company's] liquidity concerns have been adequately addressed.' Recommended Reading Merck to buy Verona and its lung drug in $10B deal Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Russia Today
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Draft officers brutalizing recruits in Ukraine (VIDEOS)
Multiple new disturbing videos purporting to show extremely violent actions by Ukrainian draft officers surfaced online this week. The increasingly chaotic mobilization drive, overseen by the so-called Territorial Centers of Recruitment and Social Support (TCR), has been marred by widespread violence and abuse, with recruitment officials seen chasing recruits in the streets, brawling with them and onlookers alike, and even threatening civilians with military-grade weaponry. One of the videos, reportedly shot in the southwestern city of Nikolayev, purports to show draft officers trying to pack a potential recruit into an unmarked vehicle. The officers are seen violently beating their victim and repeatedly smashing him with the car's door. Another video, reportedly taken in the Black Sea port city of Odessa, shows a group of officers trying to pack a draftee into their bus. The man appears to be heavily beaten, with his clothes torn and stained with dirt. A fresh video from the city of Dnepr (also known as Dnepropetrovsk) shows a mass brawl between a group of teenagers and several men believed to be draft officers. The plainclothes TCR officials were confronted by onlookers as they attempted to pack a man into their unmarked vehicle, with the altercation promptly devolving into a fisticuffs. The civilians ultimately managed to overpower the officers and free the detainee. Ukrainian mobilization, launched early in the conflict with Russia, has grown increasingly chaotic and violent over the years. The effort has received the moniker 'busification', which describes the process of violently packing recruits into the unmarked minibuses commonly used by TCR officials. Kiev has long denied widespread violence and abuse related to the draft process, routinely dismissing it as 'Russian propaganda.' This April, however, the country's military admitted that its recruitment process has been marred by certain shortcomings. 'Busification is a shameful phenomenon, and we're doing our best to avoid it,' deputy head of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Lt. Gen. Ivan Gavrilyuk said.
Russia Today
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Mother dies trying to save son from draft officers in Ukraine – media (VIDEO)
A woman has died shortly after a desperate attempt to save her son from military recruitment officers in Ukraine, a local Telegram channel and media have claimed, posting a dramatic video of the incident. Ukrainian authorities declared general mobilization following the escalation of the conflict with Russia in 2022, barring most men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country. In 2024, Kiev tightened conscription laws and lowered the draft age from 27 to 25. However, a considerable number of would-be recruits are apparently unwilling to join the Ukrainian military, as attested by numerous social media videos depicting men fleeing from or resisting draft officers. The mobilization campaign, enforced by the country's Territorial Centers of Recruitment and Social Support (TCR), has been repeatedly criticized over draft officers' aggressive tactics and abuses. The video of the incident, which reportedly took place in the city of Merefa in Kharkov Region in eastern Ukraine, was published by a local Telegram channel on Tuesday. A woman in her 60s can be seen clinging to the windshield of a moving van, seemingly trying to stop it. The vehicle moves in reverse gear for some time while the woman screams. An onlooker shooting the video is heard claiming that the van belonged to military recruitment officers who had recently taken the woman's son, who was presumably being held inside the vehicle. Eventually, a brawny man emerges from the vehicle and rudely tackles the woman, finally making her let go of the van. Soon after it speeds away, the woman collapses to the ground. According to media outlet, the woman soon passed away in an ambulance. In recent months, numerous violent altercations between draft officers and reluctant draftees have been captured on video all across Ukraine. There have also been multiple cases of civil disobedience and even assassinations of draft officers, as well as reports of men dying under suspicious circumstances shortly after being taken from the street. Ukrainian lawmaker Roman Kostenko claimed last month that fewer than one in four recruits enlist voluntarily, with most entering service through what he described as 'brutal compulsory conscription.' Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Ukrainian recruitment officers are grabbing people 'like dogs on the street.' He accused the leadership in Kiev of waging a war 'to the last Ukrainian' on behalf of Western nations. Meanwhile, Ukraine's Defense Ministry has officially dismissed criticism of the mobilization process as 'Russian propaganda.'
Time of India
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Why Cristiano Ronaldo skipped Diogo Jota's funeral despite being heartbroken
Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva died in a car crash in Spain just two weeks after the former's wedding. His wife Rute Cardoso and their three children were among the mourners at the service in Gondomar. But Portugal National Team teammate Cristiano Ronaldo was not present, and many fans started asking why. Cristiano Ronaldo's sister Katia Aveiro answered that question. She said the footballer didn't want the cameras and media to create a circus around him and distract people from the pain of the family. 'It is absurdly shameful to focus on who didn't attend instead of honouring the pain of a family broken by loss,' she wrote online. A personal memory shaped Ronaldo's decision Katia recalled what happened when their own father died in 2005. The press followed their every move, and the children couldn't even leave the chapel properly. That experience stayed with them. So Ronaldo feared that something similar could happen again if he attended Jota's funeral. The Mirror reports that Cristiano Ronaldo decided not to attend Diogo Jota's funeral out of fear that it might disrupt the atmosphere. — TCR. (@TeamCRonaldo) July 5, 2025 She added, 'It's the fear of creating a media circus. Silence is also empathy.' That's why Ronaldo stayed silent and away. But his tribute to Jota was still heartfelt. 'We were just together in the national team. You had just gotten married. It doesn't make sense,' Ronaldo wrote on social media. He sent his condolences to Jota's wife and children, saying, 'I know you will always be with them. Rest in peace, Diogo and Andre.' Ronaldo and Jota were part of the Portugal team that beat Spain in the Nations League final last month. The loss came suddenly and painfully, but Ronaldo chose to grieve quietly, not in front of flashing cameras.
Associated Press
30-06-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Finding Suggests Treatment Approach for Autoimmune Diseases
NEW YORK, June 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- An engineered protein turns off the kind of immune cells most likely to damage tissue as part of Type-1 diabetes, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, shows a new study in mice. In these autoimmune diseases, T cells mistakenly target the body's own tissues instead of invading viruses or bacteria as they would during normal immune responses. Treatments focused on T cells have been elusive because blocking their action broadly weakens the immune system and creates risk for infections and cancer. Published online June 30 in the journal Cell, the study revealed that holding closely together two protein groups (signaling complexes) on T cells, including one found more often on T cells involved autoimmune disease, shuts down those T cells in a limited way. Led by researchers at NYU Langone Health, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Zhejiang University, the study built on biology newly discovered by the team to design an antibody that attached to both T cell signaling complexes, the T cell receptor and the LAG-3 checkpoint, held them closely together, and eliminated autoimmune tissue damage in three mouse models of disease. Antibodies are proteins made by the immune system that label specific markers on cells for notice by the immune system. Researchers learned decades ago to engineer antibodies to target certain molecules as treatments, and more recently, antibodies that attach to two targets. 'Our findings reveal an intricate mechanism that enables a careful treatment approach to T-cell driven autoimmune diseases, which currently lack effective immunotherapies,' said co-senior study author Jun Wang, PhD., assistant professor in the Department of Pathology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Held in Place The study results are based on the presence on T cells of T-cell receptors (TCRs) and checkpoints. TCRs, although shaped so that bits of invading bacteria or viruses fit into them to activate the T cell, are turned on by the body's own proteins in autoimmune diseases. Checkpoints like LAG-3 are also turned on by specific signaling partners, but when this occurs they have the opposite effect of TCRs, suppressing the T cell's activity. Also important to the new study results is that TCR-triggering molecules must be presented to T cell receptors by another set of immune cells that 'swallow' foreign (e.g., microbial) or bodily substances and display on their surfaces through protein groups called major histocompatibility complex es (MHC-II) just the small protein pieces that activate a given TCR. 'We discovered that, as a T cell's surface draws close to the MHC-II presenting its TCR trigger molecule, the T cell receptor gets particularly close to LAG-3", said co-first author Jasper Du, a third-year medical student in Dr. Wang's lab. 'For the first time, we found that this proximity is central to the ability of LAG-3 to dial back T cell activity.' Mechanistically, the research team found that the proximity of LAG-3 lets it loosely stick to part of the T cell receptor called CD3ε (like two oily globs interacting). This attachment was found to pull on CD3ε enough to disrupt its interaction an enzyme called Lck, which is crucial for T cell activation. MHC-II can theoretically attach to LAG-3 and TCR at the same time, but not frequently enough to maximize LAG-3's ability to dial down T cells, the researchers said. In addition, 'checkpoints' like LAG-3 are used by the immune system to turn off T cells when the right signals, given off by normal cells, dock in to avert self-attack (autoimmunity). Cancer cells put off signaling molecules that dock into checkpoints and sabotage the ability of T cells to attack them. Therapies called checkpoint inhibitors counter this effect. LAG-3 turns off T cells, but less easily due to its spatial requirements than another checkpoint called PD-1. This feature makes LAG-3 inhibitors weaker as anti-cancer cancer treatment than PD-1-inhibiting antibody treatments that have become a mainstay, but likely better when the immune system is overactive, and targeted T cell suppression is required for maximum safe effect. Based on their discovery of the critical role of TCR proximity in LAG-3 function, the research team designed a molecule that enforces LAG-3/TCR proximity to achieve better LAG-3-dependent TCR inhibition and suppression of T cell responses. Their 'bi-specific' antibody held LAG-3 and the T cell receptor together more strongly than MHC-II, and without depending on it. The current authors' bispecific antibody, named the LAG-3/TCR Bispecific T cell Silencer or BiTS, potently suppressed T cell responses and lessened inflammatory damage to insulin-producing cells (insulitis) in BiTS-treated mice with a version of Type 1 diabetes. In autoimmune models of hepatitis, BiTS treatment reduced T cell infiltration and liver damage. With the diabetes and hepatitis disease models largely driven by one type of T cells (CD8+), the team also used a mouse model of multiple sclerosis known to be driven by a second major T cell type (CD4+). The team treated mice prone to develop multiple sclerosis with short-term, preventive BiTS prior to the onset of disease symptoms, and BiTS-treated mice had reduced disease by a standard measure. 'Our study advances our understanding of LAG-3 biology and may foster more proximity-based, spatially-guided therapeutic designs like BiTS as immunotherapy for other human diseases,' said co-first author Jia You, a research scientist in Dr. Wang's lab. Along with Dr. Wang, corresponding authors of the study were Jack Wei Chen of the Department of Cell Biology and Department of Cardiology at the Second Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China; as well Jizhong Lou of the State Key Laboratory of Epigenetic Regulation and Intervention, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Also other authors from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine were Jia Liu, Qiao Lu, Connor James, Ryan Foster, and Eric Rao in the Department of Pathology at New York University Grossman School of Medicine; Meng-ju Lin and Catherine Pei-ju Lu in the Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery and Department of Cell Biology; and Michael Cammer at the Microscopy Core, Division of Advanced Research Technologies, and Shohei Koide of the Perlmutter Cancer Center. Also making important contributions were Hui Chen at the State Key Laboratory of Epigenetic Regulation and Intervention, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Yong Zhang from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; Wei Hu and Jie Gao at The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine; and Weiwei Yin in the Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of the Ministry of Education, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Science, also at Zhejiang University. The study was supported principally by a translational advancement award from the Judith and Stewart Colton Center for Autoimmunity at NYU Langone Health. Also funding the study were a Cancer Center Support Grant P30CA016087, NIH grant S10OD021727, the NYU melanoma SPORE and NIH R37CA273333, and an NIH/NIAMS T32 grant (AR069515-07). The biophysical analysis part of this work was also supported by multiple grants from National Science Foundations of China (32090044, T2394512, 32200549, and T2394511). Dr. Wang, Du and You are listed as inventors of pending patents related to the study. NYU Langone Health and its Technology Opportunities & Ventures have formed a related startup company, Remunix Inc., with Dr. Wang as founder and shareholders, to license and commercialize the patents. In addition, Dr. Wang serves as a consultant for Rootpath Genomics, Bristol Myers Squibb, LAV, Regeneron, and Hanmi. Dr. Koide has reported interests in Aethon Therapeutics and Revalia Bio not related to this study. These relationships are managed in keeping with the policies of NYU Langone Health. About NYU Langone Health NYU Langone Health is a fully integrated health system that consistently achieves the best patient outcomes through a rigorous focus on quality that has resulted in some of the lowest mortality rates in the nation. Vizient Inc. has ranked NYU Langone the No. 1 comprehensive academic medical center in the country for three years in a row, and U.S. News & World Report recently placed nine of its clinical specialties among the top five in the nation. NYU Langone offers a comprehensive range of medical services with one high standard of care across 7 inpatient locations, its Perlmutter Cancer Center, and more than 320 outpatient locations in the New York area and Florida. With $14.2 billion in revenue this year, the system also includes two tuition-free medical schools, in Manhattan and on Long Island, and a vast research enterprise. Media Inquiries: Greg Williams Phone: 212-404-3500 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Langone Health
