ImaginAb and UCLA strike a licensing agreement for immuno-PET agents

Los Angeles-based biomedical firm ImaginAb has announced June 3 that the company is working with researchers at the University of California and has settled on a technology licensing agreement for the development of investigational immune cell PET agents. 

The novel PET agents will be used for inflammation and immuno imaging of murine T cells, a target which could prove valuable for oncologic and autoimmune disease imaging. Researchers will be honing the technique in preclinical models to evaluate emerging immunotherapeutic drugs.

"These imaging agents provide new insights into the development of novel immunotherapy strategies and may deliver better understanding of the role of immune function in a wide variety of disease settings,” said Christian Behrenbruch, PhD, co-founder and CEO of ImaginAb.

So-called immuno-PET imaging of T-Cell biomarkers including CD3 and CD8 represents a way to establish therapy monitoring for drugs acting upon immune checkpoint blockades such as programmed death-1 (PD-1/L1) or  anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4.

“Existing research tools for the evaluation of response to immunotherapies in preclinical models systems are extremely limited,” commented Anna Wu, PhD, co-founder of ImaginAb and professor in the department of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA. “There are, however, a growing number of promising treatment strategies – including combination therapies – for cancer and autoimmune disease. We believe that these agents will improve our understanding immunotherapies in the research setting in order to develop more effective clinical solutions.”