Phio Pharmaceuticals and Helmholtz Zentrum München to Collaborate on Novel Targets

Phio Pharmaceuticals Corp. announced that is has entered into a research collaboration with the Helmholtz Zentrum München. The agreement covers the design and development of new targets based on Phio Pharmaceuticals’ proprietary self-delivering RNAi platform for use in cancer immunotherapies. This work will be performed at the Immunoanalytics Core Facility & research group under leadership of Prof. Dr. Elfriede Nößner and will complement Phio Pharmaceuticals’ internal research and development activities and collaborations with various other academic and industry partners.

Dr. John A. Barrett, Chief Development Officer of Phio Pharmaceuticals, stated: “We are excited to be working with Dr. Nößner and her team who are experts in the study of lymphoid and myeloid effector cells and how to improve their contribution in overcoming tumor immunosuppression. In addition, the group has a successful track record of industry collaborations, thus the work will be of direct relevance for the development of the next generation therapeutics based on our self-delivering RNAi platform.”

Prof. Dr. Elfriede Nößner, Head of Immunoanalytics at the Helmholtz Zentrum München, said: “Available data shows that Phio Pharmaceuticals’ self-delivering RNAi technology is ideally suited to inhibit checkpoints in immune effector cells such as T cells and NK cells in the microenvironment of solid tumors or inflammatory diseases. I look forward to working with the Phio team on targets beyond their interesting checkpoint-inhibiting self-delivering RNAi pipeline.”