Collaboration Expands Platform’s Reach Beyond Cancer and Autoimmune Disease to Address T cell Exhaustion in Chronic Infectious Diseases

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cue Biopharma, Inc., (NASDAQ: CUE) an innovative immunotherapy company developing a novel, proprietary class of biologics engineered to selectively modulate the human immune system to treat cancer, autoimmune and chronic infectious diseases, announced today that the company has entered into a strategic research collaboration with Albert Einstein College of Medicine to advance the next generation of Immuno-STAT™ biologics for chronic infectious diseases. 

“We are very pleased to expand our relationship with Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and believe this collaboration will enhance our capabilities and capacity to study and develop Immuno-STAT™ biologics to address T cell exhaustion,” said Daniel Passeri, M.Sc., J.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Cue Biopharma. “This strategic collaboration should provide us with enhanced capacity for bringing our selective T cell modulation Immuno-STAT™ platform to the clinic for more diverse applications, such as chronic infectious diseases.”

“We look forward to furthering our relationship with Einstein and to working with world class researchers to expand the therapeutic reach of our Immuno-STAT™ platform,” said Anish Suri, Ph.D., and Chief Scientific Officer of Cue Biopharma. "Through our collaboration we aim to leverage the modularity and selectivity of the platform to expand the therapeutic reach of our biologics beyond cancer and autoimmune disease to chronic infectious disease where overcoming T cell exhaustion has been a challenge.”

“Cue Biopharma's platform for selective modulation of T cells holds great promise and I believe through this collaboration we will be able to continue to advance the next generation of Immuno-STAT™ biologics,” said Steven C. Almo, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Biochemistry, Professor of Physiology & Biophysics and the Wollowick Family Foundation Chair in Multiple Sclerosis and Immunology at Einstein, and co-founder of Cue Biopharma. “Chronic infectious disease is a natural area for expansion and I look forward to working with the company to further explore this opportunity to develop innovative therapeutic strategies that address unmet medical needs."

Collaborating with Dr. Almo is Harris Goldstein, M.D., Director of the Center for AIDS Research at Einstein, where he is also Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Professor of Pediatrics and the Charles Michael Chair in Autoimmune Diseases.

About Cue Biopharma
Cue Biopharma is an innovative immunotherapy company developing a novel, proprietary class of biologics engineered to selectively modulate the human immune system to treat a broad range of cancers, autoimmune and chronic infectious diseases. We design biologics to engage and modulate the activity of disease-associated T cells in the patient’s body, with the goal of offering significant therapeutic benefits while potentially minimizing or eliminating unwanted side effects.

We believe our selective biologics allow us to target antigen-specific T cell populations in a variety of indications using a peptide – MHC complex for delivering T cell modulating effectors, such as IL-2. Once a biologic has been optimized, our approach offers the potential for readily exchanging peptides to target different T cell populations and indications using previously-validated drug frameworks developed from the Immuno-STAT™ (Selective Targeting and Alteration of T cells) platform. This flexibility could truncate the drug selection and development process, moving effective therapeutics from discovery to clinical validation more rapidly and cost-efficiently than current industry standard timelines and costs.

Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, we are led by an experienced management team and scientific and clinical advisory board (SAB/CAB) with deep expertise in the design and clinical development of protein biologics, immunology and immuno-oncology.

For more information, visit www.cuebio.com.

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Investor Contact:
John Woolford
Westwicke Partners
443-213-0506

Media Contact:
Cory Tromblee
Sam Brown Inc
617-571-7220

Source: Cue Biopharma, Inc.