Virality is an internet term that refers to the rapid spread of information.
As an actual virus, AdAPT-001 has virality—but not necessarily vitality since the age-old question “are viruses alive?” is an open one—in spades.
This virality only applies to tumors where AdAPT-001 infects, replicates, and expresses the TGF-β trap that it carries prior to lysis and the release of new viral particles. These new viral particles or virions spread to neighboring cancer cells and repeat the process of infection, replication, expression of DNA “information,” and lysis all over again in a quasi-endless loop.
In 2024, we predict that AdAPT-001 will go viral for another reason—because of promising evidence that it sensitizes or resensitizes immunotherapy-resistant tumors to checkpoint inhibitors in the absence of additive toxicities. This is a big deal, or potentially a big deal, since checkpoint inhibitors by themselves are only active in a minority of patients. In combination they are more active, but better activity often coincides with significantly more toxicity.
It is time to flip the script on tumors so a majority, not a minority of patients, benefit from the promise of immunotherapy without increased rates of adverse side effects.