Lentigen Corporation, a biotechnology company in Gaithersburg, Maryland has received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to advance an immunotherapy for melanoma invented by Michael Nishimura, Professor of Surgery, at the Medical University of South Carolina. In this program, Lentigen will collaborate with Nishimura.
Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer. It is the leading cause of death from skin disease. The company notes that the rate of incidence increasing at a rate of three to five percent a year. With current therapies, metastatic melanoma has a five-year survival rate of less than 10%, even after surgery.
Nishimura’s immunotherapy is based on activation and targeting of a patient’s immune cells in the laboratory, followed by re-infusion to attack the patient’s melanoma tumor cells. The grant is a Phase II SBIR award, designed to further develop an idea or concept with scientific merit and commercial potential. For this project, the grant will fund a clinical trial of the therapy at Medical University of South Carolina.
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