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Letter from the Director 

Despite being affected by the global Covid-19 situation, the first 18 months of activities within NextGenNK have been intense. NextGenNK is a Vinnova (Sweden’s Innovation Agency) funded Competence Center for the development of next-generation NK cell-based cancer immunotherapies. The Competence Center is coordinated by Karolinska Institutet (KI, Coordinator) and involves collaborations between KI, the Karolinska University Hospital, and several national as well as international SME and Pharma Partners. It has initiated outreach activities directed towards interactions with other Swedish universities and university hospitals. Adding to this, many of the Competence Center’s academic founders are currently entering into collaborative research projects with SME and Industry.

Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren, Director

Photo: Ulf Sirborn

As mentioned in the last newsletter, we are continuing to witness remarkable developments in the field of new cell-based cancer immunotherapies. We continue to see how cancer immunotherapies change the current paradigms of treatment. In this space, NK cells are advancing to the forefront of new cell-based cancer immunotherapies. It is in this context that NextGenNK operates. A striking feature in the field is how achievements are made through collaborations between academic, health care, and industrial Partners. Many NK cell-centric companies have also initiated different forms of alliances with larger Pharma companies. In Sweden, we currently see the dynamic development of companies in the field, for example, XNK Therapeutics AB, highlighted below.

Development strategies within global NK cell SME and Industry focus on both autologous as well as allogeneic NK cell products. An attractiveness in the allogeneic space is the possibility to develop off-the-shelf products. Here, one of the most rapid areas of development is the generation of iPSC-derived NK cell products, that is NK cells differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). Current manufactured iPSC-derived NK cells produce inflammatory cytokines, kill tumor cells, and cooperate effectively with anti-tumor T cells, supporting their potential as off-the-shelf advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) (Chihocki et al., Science Translational Medicine, 2020). This development opens up for further genetic modification of these cells by, e.g., optimizing metabolic properties, enhancing potency via induced differentiation, as well as altering or potentiating target recognition domains, activities all currently under study for exploration within the Competence Center.

In its activities, the Competence Center is continuing to foster its research and development interactions between the Coordinator and Partners, as well as among the Partners, to drive the development of next-generation NK cell-based therapies. With respect to outreach activities, the Competence Center’s Directors have played an active role at the virtual Innate Killer Summit in March 2021, at the Allogeneic Cell Therapy Summit in May 2021, and at the ELRIG – Cell and Gene Therapy meeting, also in May 2021. Together with Sanofi, the Competence Center has recently hosted a special symposium focusing on NK cells in the context of cancer immunotherapy and prospects for industrial development.

Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren, Director

Credit: Vecura

Under the heading "Spotlight," we present Partners involved in the NextGenNK Competence Center. XNK Therapeutics is a clinical stage, immunotherapy company based in Stockholm, Sweden. It has established a leadership position in the clinical development and manufacture of autologous NK cell-based products using its proprietary technology platform. The company’s platform technology and leading investigational drug candidate have excellent properties for targeting cancers, including in settings where allogeneic cell products are not readily applicable. For more info, please visit XNK Therapeutics' website.