Candel Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CADL) is at the forefront of developing the next generation of viral immunotherapy by leveraging a data-driven approach through its enLIGHTEN Discovery Platform. This platform integrates artificial intelligence-selected therapeutic payloads into programmable vectors for delivery into the tumor microenvironment.
The enLIGHTEN™ Discovery Platform is designed to address the complexity of the tumor microenvironment and the diversity of tumor responses to existing treatments. By utilizing large patient datasets, the platform identifies druggable properties that correlate with clinical outcomes and predicts optimal therapeutic payload combinations in silico. These predicted payload combinations are then tested in real-world settings to evaluate their therapeutic effects. Validated multigene payloads are subsequently integrated into Candel's programmable viral vectors, engineered with tunable features to address specific unmet needs in cancer treatment.
The enLIGHTEN™ immunotherapy candidates represent a novel class of bespoke immunotherapies, each tailored for a specific indication, disease stage, or rationally designed therapeutic combination therapy. During the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2023 Annual Meeting and the International Oncolytic Virus Conference in November 2023, Candel presented the first experimental immunotherapy candidate from its discovery platform: Alpha 201-macro-1, an investigational viral immunotherapy designed to activate innate immune surveillance.
At the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in April 2024, the company presented late-breaking data from its second immunotherapy candidate based on this platform: a therapeutic able to induce organized lymphocyte aggregates that resemble tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) within solid tumors. Formation of TLS in tumors correlates with a positive response to immune checkpoint inhibitors and better prognosis.
Candel Therapeutics and the University of Pennsylvania are collaborating in a discovery partnership that will leverage enLIGHTEN™ programmable vectors with therapeutic payloads to potentially overcome barriers to Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. Through the partnership, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania will explore the ability of Candel's novel viral immunotherapies to enhance the effects of the university's CAR T-cell therapies in solid tumor models.
