IO Biotech Announces
IO Biotech Announces New Preclinical Data for Additional Pipeline Candidate Presented at the AACR-IO Conference
NEW YORK, Feb. 23, 2025 -- IO Biotech, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel, immune-modulatory, off-the-shelf therapeutic cancer vaccines, today announced details of its poster presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)-IO conference taking place February 23-26, 2025, in Los Angeles, California.
Poster Presentation Details. Title: A TGF-β-directed peptide vaccine induces T cell activation & drives anti-tumor activity by modulating the architecture of the tumor microenvironment. Poster number: B117. Presenter: Matteo Bocci, PhD, Senior Scientist.
Transforming Growth Factor Beta (TGF-β) is a key immune-suppressive factor in the tumor microenvironment (TME) of most solid tumors, often limiting the efficacy of various immune-oncology therapies. While global TGF-β inhibition strategies have shown limited success due to systemic toxicity, a more targeted modulation approach may be key to achieving sustained anti-tumor activity. IO Biotech's proprietary T-win® platform is designed to selectively modulate TGF-β activity rather than fully inhibit it, targeting both tumor cells and key immune-suppressive cells within the TME.
The poster details the potential of IO170, a TGF-β peptide vaccine that showed significantly reduced tumor growth in pancreatic adenocarcinoma and prostate cancer models. The vaccine-induced robust immune responses reshaped the TME without causing systemic toxicity or adverse off-target effects. These findings support the continued development of an immune-modulatory vaccine targeting TGF-β as a novel approach for treating a wide range of cancers.
"Unlike other existing approaches that aim at inhibiting the TGFβ signaling systemically, our strategy uniquely targets TGFβ+ cells that are contributing to key immune resistance mechanisms in cancer,” said Ayako Wakatsuki Pedersen, PhD, Senior Vice President of Translational Research at IO Biotech. "These findings further validate our approach to immune-modulatory cancer vaccines that reshape the tumor microenvironment to enhance treatment efficacy. We look forward to advancing this research and sharing additional data as we explore its clinical applications while we prepare for an Investigational New Drug Application (IND) submission to FDA for IO170.”
About IO Biotech
IO Biotech is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel, immune-modulatory, off-the-shelf therapeutic cancer vaccines based on its T-win® platform. The T-win platform is based on a novel approach to cancer vaccines designed to activate T cells to target both tumor cells and the immune-suppressive cells in the tumor microenvironment. IO Biotech is advancing its lead investigational cancer vaccine candidate, Cylembio™ (imsapepimut and etimupepimut, adjuvanted) also known as IO102-IO103 in clinical trials, and additional pipeline candidates through preclinical development. Based on positive Phase 1/2 first line metastatic melanoma data, IO102-IO103, in combination with Merck's anti-PD-1 therapy, KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab), has been granted a Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the treatment of advanced melanoma by the US Food and Drug Administration. IO Biotech is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark and has US headquarters in New York, New York.
