Today Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) submitted comments to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) regarding the “Prospective Grant of an Exclusive Patent License: Vaccine Augmented Adoptive Cell Therapy for the Treatment of Cancer” (89 FR 8438). The wordwide, exclusive license is for the “Development, manufacture, and commercialization of combination immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer in humans, comprising at least the following elements: 1. An autologous T cell product, where the T cells are tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) or chimeric antigen receptor-expressing T cells (CAR–T); and 2. A neoantigen cancer vaccine.”
The technology is to be licensed to Marble Therapeutics, based in Boston, MA. Marble Therapeutics does not have a website, but its LinkedIn page lists its principals and a Forbes contributor published a feature about one of the founders Denitsa Milanova. It is a start-up company with investors and scientific expertise, albeit one that appears to be focused on the use of gene therapies for skin de-aging and rejuvenation, rather than cancer treatments.
KEI’s comments urge the NIH to ensure afforable access to any resultant treatment through including terms in the license concerning:
- Price discrimination
- Access in developing countries, and
- Transparency.
KEI’s full comments are available here: KEI-Comments-NIH-License-Marble-Therapeutics-22Feb2024