Digital Transformation

Gene Therapy to Defeat Cancer

Approach

Sagittarius Bio is changing the cancer narrative

The relationship between cancer and the immune system is complex and requires a revolutionary approach to treatment.

Our technologies build the patient’s anti-cancer immune response from the ground up to avoid the pitfalls of current immune therapies by activating tumor-specific immune cells and reconditioning the tumor to achieve a meaningful response.

The activation of memory T cells is vital to durable immune responses and central to Sagittarius’ approach to eliminating cancer and preventing its recurrence. T cell Targeting with gene therapy is at the core of what we do at SAGITTARIUS BIO.

T Cell
Developing Gene Therapy Products That Train a Patient's T Cells to Kill Cancer

The Future of Cancer Treatment: Gene Therapy

Sagittarius Bio is innovating precision immuno-oncology

Our single-agent gene therapy platforms selectively activate cancer-specific immune cells to elicit protective immune responses by triggering multiple anti-cancer mechanisms simultaneously.

We believe meaningful clinical outcomes can be achieved over those observed with current and near future immune therapies such as checkpoint inhibitors, mRNA cancer vaccines and cell therapies by addressing three anti-cancer memory T cell inducing signals: 1) tumor-targeting antigens, 2) co-stimulatory/checkpoint proteins and 3) growth/differentiation factors. Our approach stimulates a proprietary blend of these anti-cancer signals to selectively kill cancer cells and prevent cancer’s recurrence.

Technologies

Virus-Like DNA (VLD): A Highly-Disruptive, Personalizable Therapeutic Platform

VLD is a transformative non-viral, single-agent gene therapy platform designed to activate three classes of anti-cancer signals to produce durable tumor-specific T cell responses. Our preclinical data demonstrate that VLD eradicates aggressive tumors and generates anti-cancer immunity. VLD provides a scalable, modular, rapid, powerful, and cost-effective means of inducing a durable anti-tumor immune response to eradicate cancer.

Sagittarius’ Individualized Cancer Therapeutic Platform

Our individualized cancer therapeutic platform integrates our machine learning (ML) software with our VLD platform.

This rapidly manufacturable, rationally-designed gene therapy may provide a solution for cancer patients with unmet needs and urgent timelines to drive promising clinical outcomes, especially in those living with typically incurable cancers.

VLD and the Individualized Cancer Therapeutic Platforms are undergoing development towards IND.

SynBAd: A Robustly-Active, Poly-Functional Therapeutic Platform

Our SynBAd gene therapy platform is engineered to activate both systemic and tumor-resident, cancer-specific T cells. Preclinical studies demonstrate that our platform technology significantly extends survival in a clinically-relevant model of liver cancer, a promising outcome especially given the challenges of targeting diseases in the liver.

SynBAd-HBV: A Promising First-in-Class Therapeutic for HBV+ Liver Cancer

SynBAd-HBV is our lead clinical candidate designed to eliminate liver cancer. SynBAd-HBV consists of the SynBAd delivery vehicle encoding our proprietary, ML-enabled HBV antigen designed to activate HBV-specific T cells in patients with HBV+ hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and HBV+ cholangiocarcinoma.

SynBAd-HBV is currently undergoing development towards IND.

Our Software Driven Designs Accelerate the Evolution of Personalized Cancer Therapies

Each cancer patient’s tumor has a unique molecular signature. Investigational personalized therapies targeting these molecular signatures have resulted in a limited number of curative responses and remain inefficient with regard to cost and time.

The successful individualization of cancer therapies requires a platform designed from product inception, that is rapidly producible and integrates ML-enabled bioinformatics, with modular biology. Our long-term goal is to enable this personalization by providing patients with timely, scalable, and effective cancer therapeutics.

About Us

Our Mission

To deliver cancer therapies that recruit and activate the most potent elements of the immune system and meaningfully elevate expectations for outcomes in oncology.

Our Vision

To innovate multifunctional therapeutic platforms that cure cancer by educating the immune system to permanently recognize and destroy cancer cells and minimize side effects which have a negative impact on patients’ quality of life.

Our Team

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    Shahrooz Rabizadeh, PhD

    CEO

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    Kayvan Niazi, PhD

    CSO

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    Steve Benz, PhD

    CTO

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    Aleece Nolasco

    SVP, RA/QA

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    Justin Golovato, MS, MBA

    SVP, Operations

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    Aaron Bassett

    SVP, Technology

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    Jim Kytola

    SVP, Software

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    Peter Sieling, PhD

    VP, Immunology

Scientific Publications & Presentations

Virus-like DNA, a single-agent poly-functional therapeutic platform that potently activates anti- cancer protective immunity

Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer on Saturday, November 4, 2023

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SynBAd, a clinical cancer vaccine candidate, induces antigen-specific T cells and extends life in a therapeutic liver cancer model

Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer on Friday, November 3, 2023

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Modified adenovirus induces antigen specific T cells and effector memory T cells in mice

Presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Immunologists on Saturday, May 13, 2023

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