Oxford-based Greywolf Therapeutics is developing new treatments for cancer patients who currently have limited immunotherapy options. With support from Innovate UK’s Biomedical Catalyst and Cancer Therapeutics programmes, the company is focusing on colorectal cancer, the UK’s fourth most common cancer and second leading cause of cancer-related death.
The challenge
Colorectal cancer is becoming more common, especially in younger people. Unlike other cancers, it typically has a low tumour mutation burden, meaning fewer genetic changes for the immune system to detect. As a result, standard immunotherapies often fail to work, leaving patients reliant on invasive treatments like chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy.
Greywolf’s approach
Greywolf is tackling this challenge by enhancing how cancer cells present themselves to the immune system. Their therapy modulates ERAP-1, an enzyme that helps process proteins into peptides (small fragments that appear on the surface of cells). This modulation leads to novel peptides being expressed on the cell surface in increased abundance, meaning tumours are ‘illuminated’ and therefore more visible to T cells and the wider immune system.
Accelerating innovation with Innovate UK
We were so excited to get the extra grant funding from Innovate UK. It’s really helped us to accelerate the speed with which we can do our research.
“Funding in the sort of early research that we do is always hard to come by. So having that extra investment from Innovate UK has helped us do more experiments, produce more data and move our therapies faster towards the clinic than we would have been able to do otherwise.
Dr Tom Lillie, Chief Medical Officer