Inside the Expert Network Guiding TGN-S15 to Market

In an interview with PharmTech, Sandra Coufal, MD, CEO, Toragen, outlines the scientific foundation and clinical ambitions behind TGN-S15 and her team's HPV-focused research, highlighting the exceptional expertise guiding their work and the significant unmet medical need they are working to address.

Central to the effort is Aldo Venuti, chairman of the scientific advisory board and a leading global authority on the HPV E5 protein. His institution, the Regina Elena Institute in Rome, serves as a sub-awardee on a Gates Foundation grant and provides crucial access to a rare precancerous cervical cell line originally licensed from the University of Cambridge.

This cell line is pivotal because it could allow the team to test their drug candidate against abnormal pap smear diagnoses. As Dr. Coufal explains, "If you could successfully treat abnormal Pap smears, over 99% of which are from HPV infection altering the cells, then you wouldn't have to have partial cervical resections." Such resections, when extensive, can lead to an incompetent cervix and loss of the ability to carry a pregnancy.

HPV is the most frequently transmitted sexual infection, affecting approximately 85% of sexually active people, with 10% unable to clear the virus on their own and no routine blood test yet exists to identify who those individuals are.

Rounding out the advisory team are Dr. Ezra Cohen, lead investigator on Keytruda trials in HPV-positive head and neck cancer; Dr. Penelope Duerksen-Hughes, an expert in HPV E5 and E7 proteins; and Dr. Bill DeGrado of UCSF, whose chemistry expertise continues to advance the program.