Trillium expands immunology pipeline and enters stem cell field through in-licensing of two new programs
Trillium Therapeutics Inc. (TTI) announced that it has entered into two definitive license agreements with University Health Network (UHN) and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Ontario, granting Trillium exclusive worldwide rights to commercialize two immunology programs in the areas of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and cancer.
"We are very excited to have strengthened our immunology franchise and to have reinforced our existing bond with Toronto's world-class immunology community. Our productive long-standing relationship with UHN bodes well for the success of this new collaboration", commented Dr. Niclas Stiernholm, Trillium's CEO. "This transaction exemplifies how ground-breaking Canadian science can and should be commercialized by our domestic biotechnology industry, something that must be encouraged and supported also by government and investor groups."
The first project licensed by TTI is aimed at improving hematopoietic stem cell engraftment by agonizing a key immunoregulatory pathway and thereby preventing the host immune system from attacking transplanted stem cells. The second program is focused on the treatment of several types of cancers by antagonizing the same pathway in cancer stem cells, stimulating the patient's own immune system to attack the cancer. Drs. John Dick, and Jean Wang from UHN, and Dr. Jayne Danska, the inventors of these technologies, first published their initial findings in Nature Immunology in December 2007. Through companion sponsored research agreements, they will be collaborating closely with Trillium's scientific team to advance this cutting-edge science towards testing in humans.
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