“It gives real biological insight into immunotherapies at a level of resolution that just wasn't possible before,” says Juno CSO Hy Levitsky. Indeed, Adaptive CSO and co-founder Harlan Robins claims that nearly every major pharma company working with cancer immunotherapies, such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells or 'checkpoint inhibitor' drugs, has explored at least some application of his company's technology. Most recently, in mid-January, J. Craig Venter's company Human Longevity, Inc. of San Diego, announced that Adaptive's immunoSEQ platform for repertoire profiling would be a component of their newly launched oncology genomic analysis program.
Companies like Adaptive, AbVitro and Redwood City, California–based Atreca have built a business around monitoring and profiling T-cell receptors (TCRs) and B-cell receptors (BCRs). The companies apply next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics to characterize and quantify the immune response in a patient's sample. Such testing can help determine whether treatment has been successful, provide prognostic information and guide treatment decisions for certain blood cancers (Nat. Biotechnol. 31, 184, 2013). Now these companies are going after a wider range of malignancies, and moving into diagnostics and therapeutics.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution