Dyve Biosciences announced today that it entered into a joint two-year research collaboration with the Moffit Cancer Center.
Under the collaboration, Dyve and Moffit will study the former’s systemic buffering agent, DYV800, delivered through the company’s broadly applicable transdermal delivery technology, in various cancer laboratory models.
According to a news release, the models through which DYV800 will be studied are developed by Moffit Chair of the Department of Physiology, Robert Gillies. If successful, the laboratory results will support the advancement of DYV800 into focused human trials for specific oncology indications.
Dyve expects its buffering agent to decrease the acidic microenvironment in tumors, allowing the body’s own immunological defense mechanisms to better penetrate the tumor, increasing the effectiveness of current anti-cancer agents. The company said its DYV702 investigational candidate — which leverages a similar buffering mechanism of action compared to DYV800 — recently demonstrated a strong dose-dependent response in a Phase 2 program in patients with acute gout pain flares and was shown to be well-tolerated.
Gillies said in the news release that previous attempts to orally deliver Moffit’s published therapy failed due to poor taste and poor compliance. He called the prospect of using Dyve’s transdermal delivery “truly exciting” and potentially “a game-changer.”
“This collaboration is a fortuitous convergence of Dr. Gillies’ long-standing, world-renowned research on the tumor microenvironment and the successful development of transdermal buffering agents at Dyve,” Dyve CEO Dr. Ryan Beal said in the release. “We are excited about this opportunistic collaboration because it signals our entry into the cancer area with a novel mechanistic class of therapeutic agents that we expect to advance into the clinic to treat specific cancers. Our experience with DYV702 validates our novel scientific platform for transdermal delivery and underscores our ability to deliver clinically meaningful levels of buffering capacity into the human body.”
