Most cell therapies target a single antigen on cancer cells. Luminary engineers its cells to recognize three different receptors. The therapy only needs one of the three to be present to work, making it significantly harder for cancer cells to mutate and "escape" the treatment.

The therapy is designed to work even if different patients express different cancer "flags." More critically, it targets multiple flags within a single patient's heterogeneous tumor. This reduces the risk of cancer cells that lack a single target surviving and causing treatment resistance, aiming for deeper and more durable responses.

Neoc Bio adapts its dual-targeting ADC strategy based on the antigen profile. For tumor-specific antigens, an "OR-gated" design enhances efficacy by binding if either target is present. For antigens also found on healthy cells, an "AND-gated" design improves safety by requiring both targets to be present for binding, thus sparing healthy tissue.

T-cell receptor (TCR) therapies offer a significant advantage over monoclonal antibodies by targeting intracellular proteins. They recognize peptides presented on the cell surface, effectively unlocking 90% of the proteome and requiring far fewer target molecules (5-10 copies vs. 1000+) to kill a cancer cell.

A therapeutic approach called "T-cell engagers" or "BiTEs" uses engineered antibodies with two different heads. One side binds to a cancer cell, while the other binds to a nearby T-cell. This effectively brings the killer cell and the target together, leveraging the body's existing immune cells without genetic modification.

Over 99% of cancer-specific targets are proteins located inside the cell, making them invisible to traditional antibody therapies. DEC-Bio's platform leverages the peptide MHC system, which naturally presents fragments of these internal proteins on the cell surface. This effectively unlocks a vast new library of highly cancer-specific targets.

While targeting intracellular peptide-MHC complexes opens the entire proteome as potential cancer targets, the approach is limited by HLA restriction. This means a drug might only be applicable to 30-40% of patients, a major commercial and clinical drawback that complicates development despite the potential for exquisite specificity.

While peptide-MHC targeting can theoretically apply to modalities like antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), the commercial and safety value proposition is vastly superior in T-cell engagers. ADCs can tolerate low residual target expression on healthy tissue, but the extreme potency of T-cell engagers requires strictly tumor-exclusive targets to avoid toxicities, making intracellular pMHC targets uniquely suited to engagers.

CAR-T cells are engineered to recognize a single antigen, which tumors can downregulate to escape. In contrast, TIL therapy uses a patient's own T-cells that naturally recognize multiple tumor antigens. This polyclonal attack creates a higher barrier for the cancer to develop resistance compared to a single-target CAR-T therapy.