INSPIRE

Developing novel inhaled bioengineered Extracellular Vesicle RNA based advanced therapeutics, delivered by tailored aerosol delivery technology for the treatment of lung cancer.

Lung cancer treatments have advanced in recent years with advent of genetic profiling and immunotherapy. However, survival rates remain poor and the promise of gene therapy has many challenges to overcome. To truly defeat cancer requires a complex therapeutic approach, simultaneously targeting several oncogenic pathways is required to overcome cancer resistance to treatment.

The INSPIRE project will go beyond the state of the art to combine advances in gene therapy and preclinical modelling with cutting edge manufacturing technology to deliver advanced therapeutics that can change the paradigm of treating lung cancer.

With the state of the art treatments for lung cancer, gene therapy/delivery, etc. RNAi and gene therapy technologies for delivering nucleic acid based therapeutics promise extraordinary potential for a host of indications previously untreatable with traditional modalities (e.g. small molecules or biologics). However, they have yet to enter the mainstream, due to safety concerns and the difficulties in delivering them efficiently to tissues other than the liver, kidney and circulatory system. For lung conditions, gene therapies must be delivered directly to the bronchial epithelial cells and immune cells involved in disease pathogenesis. This is a huge challenge.

Over the past 20+ years of clinical translation attempts pulmonary gene therapy has encountered major delivery and safety issues relating to the current approaches of using nanoparticles and viral vectors as gene therapy delivery vehicles:  Viscous mucus in the lung provides a significant barrier to any gene transfer vehicle reaching the target cells of the lungs.

The goal of the project is to create an allogeneic ‘off the shelf’ advanced therapeutic gene therapy with the required complexity to address a wide variety of lung cancers irrespective of phenotype or driver mutations. 

OmniSpirant’s OmniSome technology platform will be the basis for this novel lung cancer treatment. OmniSomes are extracellular vesicles (or exosomes) derived from stem cells which have been engineered to produce cancer fighting gene therapy. The video below explains how the treatment carries the gene therapy into the target cells. The OmniSomes will also be delivered intravenously to deal with cancer cells that have spread into other areas of the body from the lungs

INSPIRE is a project funded from the European’s Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the call HORIZON-HLTH-2021-TOOL-06 (Tools and technologies for a healthy society (2021)), topic HORIZON-HLTH-2021-TOOL-06-02 (Next generation advanced therapies to treat highly prevalent and high burden diseases with unmet medical needs) proposal number 101057777. Further information can be found at the European Comission Funding & tender opportunities Single Electronic Data Interchange Area (SEDIA)