Medicenna: Cytokines with a punch

Medicenna Therapeutics Inc.'s Empowered Cytokines provide an alternative to antibody-drug conjugates that are relatively cheap to produce and create a more homogenous product.

The company's compounds are fusion proteins of a cytokine and a bacterial or human toxin. Like ADCs, Empowered Cytokines require overexpression of a target receptor on the tumor cell surface that is internalized after binding, bringing the toxin into the cell...