Kite, Bluebird partner for new cancer therapies

(Reuters) - Cancer drug developers Kite Pharma Inc and Bluebird Bio Inc said they would partner to develop and market a new class of T-cell therapies for HPV-associated cancers. T-cell receptors (TCRs) are a class of compounds that make it easier for the body's immune cells to mainly identify and then destroy cancer cells. Human papilloma virus (HPV) is the most common viral infection of the reproductive tract, believed to cause 70 percent of cervical cancers as well as other urogenital cancers. TCRs have garnered interest among drug developers in the immuno-oncology industry much like CAR-T cells and are considered to be as promising as them. While TCRs help identify the cancer cells and kill them from the inside, CAR-T cells are the body's immune cells which are modified to kill cancer cells. Early data from CAR-T cell therapies have shown that the experimental immuno-oncology product has promise to treat difficult forms of cancer such as blood cancer. The National Cancer Institute has indicated that cell therapies could eventually become the standard of care in the multi-billion market to treat cancer. Data on TCRs are not yet available. Juno Therapeutics Inc, another drug developer that is developing CAR-T cell therapies, also has TCRs in its pipeline. (Reporting by Amrutha Penumudi and Vidya L Nathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)