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Neobe Therapeutics

Our technology

Enabling cancer immunotherapy through engineered live biotherapeutics

The tumour microenvironment creates multiple constraints to the success of immunotherapy in solid tumours. In a subset of patients, the highly fibrotic stroma can create barriers to immune infiltration leading to immune excluded tumours.

How the live biotherapeutic is engineered

An engineered therapeutic bacterium, rod shaped with flagella, rendered against black.

01 - The organism

A safe chassis

The platform starts with safe therapeutic bacterial strains, chosen for a high safety profile and demonstrated tumour colonising properties. The organism is the vehicle: it reaches tissue that circulating drugs do not.

The same bacterium cut away, revealing its chromosome and a circular plasmid inside the cell.

02 - The organism

Engineered inside

Synthetic biology is what makes the strain a therapeutic. Cut open, it carries the genetic circuitry Neobe designs - the part that decides what is expressed, and where.

A circular plasmid of DNA filling the frame inside the bacterial cell.

03 - The organism

Encoded, not manufactured

The payload is written into the organism rather than made in a vessel and shipped. That is what makes these live therapeutics programmable, and what lets one platform be pointed at more than one barrier in the tumour microenvironment.

The engineered bacterium, its plasmid visible inside, expressing a protein payload and releasing it toward the surface of a nearby tumour.

Delivery

The payload is expressed at the tumour itself

Once the strain has colonised, the circuit runs and the therapeutic is made in place. It never has to cross the barrier that holds circulating antibodies out, because it is not being carried there: it is produced on the other side of it.

01 - Platform

Developing a synthetic biology live biotherapeutic platform

  • Safe therapeutic strains

    Our engineered live biotherapeutics are based on safe therapeutic bacterial strains, with a high safety profile and demonstrated tumour colonizing properties.

  • Targeted remodelling

    Neobe is developing a synthetic biology live biotherapeutic platform for a safe and targeted remodeling of the microenvironment of solid tumours.

  • Programmable payloads

    Our programmable live therapeutics are engineered to remove these barriers in a safe and targeted way, expanding the benefits of immunotherapies to non-responding cancer patients.

02 - Colonisation

Bacteria reach the tissue that antibodies cannot

Bacteria have been shown to colonise, proliferate and deliver payloads to tumours, which is what makes them the candidate for this approach. The strains Neobe engineers carry a high safety profile and demonstrated tumour colonising properties.

Fluorescence microscopy of tumour tissue. Engineered bacteria appear as discrete green rods distributed through blue-stained tumour stroma, with the acquisition scale grid overlaid.
Engineered bacteria (green) distributed through tumour tissue (blue), with the acquisition scale grid overlaid.Imaging by Neobe Therapeutics

03 - Pipeline

Creating successful immunotherapy in solid tumours

We currently have two products in the pipeline entering pre-clinical development, targeting solid cancer indications of high unmet clinical need.

2products in the pipeline
3solid cancer indications
  • Colorectal
  • Pancreatic
  • Breast

  1. Programme 01

    1. Discovery
    2. Pre-clinical
    3. IND-enabling
    4. Clinical

    At IND-enabling studies

  2. Programme 02

    1. Discovery
    2. Pre-clinical
    3. IND-enabling
    4. Clinical

    Demonstrated pre-clinical efficacy

Three members of the Neobe team outside the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst building.
Neobe at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst.

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