TAIPEI, Taiwan and VACAVILLE, Calif. — Polaris Group (TWSE: 6550), a multinational biopharmaceutical company focused on research and development of novel biological drugs for cancer and other metabolic diseases, today announced that Polaris Group’s strategic partner, Nanotein Technologies, has just launched GROW-NK, a novel Natural Killer (NK) cell activation and expansion reagent. This reagent is poised to revolutionize the NK cell therapy field by replacing reliance on costly and more importantly – risky – feeder cells during NK cell therapy biomanufacturing. To innovate GROW-NK, Nanotein used their proprietary platform technology, called NanoSparkTM, which Polaris Group manufactures for all Nanotein’s launched and pipeline products.

NK cell based therapies are a new, exciting type of cancer cell therapy with a few notable advantages over those that are T cell based, namely: 1) they’re far less likely to cause graft versus host disease (GvHD), and 2) NK cells have receptors (e.g. CD16) that allow them to be targeted to cancer cells with co-infused antibodies and unleash killing through a process called antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC).

Currently, NK cell therapies are manufactured by mixing them with irradiated cancerous “feeder” cell lines that stimulate the NK cells to grow, which is:

• Costly
• Complex
• Labor-intensive
• A major concern for regulatory authorities
• Risky (i.e. this legacy approach infuses the therapy with the risk of causing the patient a new viral infection & growth of a new cancer from improperly irradiated feeder cells).

Nanotein’s New NanoSpark™ GROW-NK Soluble Activator Eliminates these Critical Pain Points 

More information about Nanotein Technologies and their best-in-class cellular therapy reagents is available on their website: www.nanoteintech.com

About the Polaris Group 

Polaris Group is a multinational biotechnology company focused on developing novel anti-cancer therapies. Our lead drug candidate, Pegargiminase (ADI‑PEG 20), is a biologic in late-stage clinical development for a wide range of cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma, mesothelioma, pancreatic cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma, acute myeloid leukemia and others. Polaris Group is involved in every stage of the drug development process. Our subsidiaries harness structure-based drug design technology to create novel oncology therapies, conduct clinical studies at top-tier cancer centers worldwide, and operate cGMP Production Facilities in Northern California and China.