CytImmune and AstraZeneca have entered into an agreement to study the feasibility of a new cancer nanomedicine that will bind an oncology compound from AstraZeneca to CytImmune's CYT-6091 nanomedicine platform.
CYT-6091, which is comprised of gold nanoparticles bound with an immune avoiding molecule (PEG-Thiol) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF), has been successfully tested at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD in a phase I clinical trial in advanced-stage cancer patients. As seen in that study, the gold nanoparticles trafficked to tumors, not to healthy tissue, resulting in an improvement in the safety of systemically administered TNF formulated as CYT-6091.