Bioarchitech is an Oxford-based biotech company developing immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer.
Bioarchitech engineers antibodies and other proteins then encodes them within the genome of an oncolytic virus. Cancer cells infected by its oncolytic virus release these potent immunotherapy molecules into the surrounding tumour microenvironment where they orchestrate the destruction of tumour cells by the patient’s own immune system.
Kevin Maskell is Research Director and a co-founder at Bioarchitech. The other founders are Dr Hannah Chen, Dr LiLi Wang and Professor Geoff Hale, all scientists based in Oxford. They each have experience researching and developing immunotherapies including oncolytic viruses, cellular therapy, vaccines and antibodies within both academia and biotech. These experiences have shown that cancer immunotherapies always encounter the same barriers to clinical efficacy, so Bioarchitech was formed to develop ways to overcome them. The core technology is developing potent immunotherapy molecules that are effective when delivered using an oncolytic virus. Bioarchitech has several projects in development each attacking cancer using multiple mechanisms of action to prevent resistance. Some of these projects are the company's own and others are co-developed with other biotech companies. The company is currently validating these immunotherapies in the lab and hopes to announce some exciting results very soon.