PACT Pharma is an independent, privately funded company recently launched by Arcus and scientific founders Jim Heath (Caltech), Toni Ribas (UCLA) and David Baltimore (Caltech). PACT's vision is to be the leader in creating, developing and commercializing cell-based therapies for the cure of cancer. Our mission is to leverage technology developed in the laboratories of Jim Heath and David Baltimore to advance the feasibility, affordability and clinical utilization of personalized neoantigen-specific adoptive cell therapy for cancer.
PACT is developing personalized adoptive T cell therapies for the eradication of solid tumors. The identification of neo-epitopes that serve as private mutations for each patient's cancer creates a unique opportunity to engineer autologous T cells that target and kill tumors expressing these neo-antigens. PACT utilizes technology to identify T cells that recognize the neo-epitope. The unique T-cell receptor (TCR) sequences obtained from these neo-epitope-reactive cells are then engineered into T cells from the patient's own blood to produce PACT's therapeutic product: a tsunami of fresh, active T cells that, following infusion into the patient, recognize and attack each patient's cancer cells.