CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cue Biopharma , Inc., an immunotherapy company developing a novel, proprietary class of biologics engineered to selectively modulate the human immune system to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases, today announced progress in its ongoing strategic collaboration with Merck (known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada) to develop Immuno-STATs™ for treating particular autoimmune diseases.

Cue Biopharma has generated the first collaborative Immuno-STAT™ against an autoimmune disease target, establishing the end-date of Merck’s exclusivity period on Immuno-STATs™ in all areas of autoimmune disease (referred to as AI-STATs™) as no later than December 14, 2019. After the end-date, Cue Biopharma will work exclusively with Merck to continue to develop product candidates targeting certain autoimmune disease indications specified under the agreement. 

“This collaboration underscores the potential of our T cell modulatory platform for targeting autoimmune diseases in an antigen-specific manner,” said Anish Suri, Ph.D., and Chief Scientific Officer of Cue Biopharma. “We are targeting autoimmune diseases using two distinct mechanisms: (1) by delivery of inhibitory signals specifically to the disease-relevant autoreactive T cell compartment and; (2) by induction and expansion of regulatory T cells (Tregs), which subsequently may modulate a broad repertoire of self-reactive T cells. This is an accomplishment for the company as we progress our novel biologics platform and demonstrates our ability to design and produce potentially immuno-modulating biologic candidates.”

“We are very pleased with our progress to date and continue working closely with Merck towards the further development of our promising platform to realize the full potential of selective T cell modulation in the treatment of debilitating autoimmune diseases,” said Daniel Passeri, M.Sc., J.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Cue Biopharma.

This is pursuant to a collaboration with Merck announced in November, 2017. 

About Cue Biopharma Cue Biopharma is an innovative immunotherapy company developing a novel, proprietary class of injectable biologics engineered to selectively modulate the human immune system to treat a broad range of cancers, chronic infectious diseases and autoimmune disorders. We design biologics to engage and modulate the activity of disease-associated T cells in the patient’s body, with the goal of offering significant therapeutic benefits while potentially minimizing or eliminating unwanted side effects.

We believe our selective biologics allow us to target antigen-specific T cell populations in a variety of indications using a peptide – MHC complex for delivering T cell modulating effectors, such as IL-2. Once a biologic has been optimized, our approach offers the potential for readily exchanging peptides to target different T cell populations and indications using previously-validated drug frameworks developed from the Immuno-STAT™ platform. This flexibility could truncate the drug selection and development process, moving effective therapeutics from discovery to clinical validation more rapidly and cost-efficiently than current industry standard timelines and costs.

Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, we are led by an experienced management team and scientific and clinical advisory board (SAB/CAB) with deep expertise in the design and clinical development of protein biologics, immunology and immuno-oncology.

For more information, visit  www.cuebio.com .

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