Mestag: Attacking tumors from within

Immunology company Mestag believes that fibroblasts have been long overlooked as therapeutic targets and can be leveraged to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases. The company has raised $45 million and presented data for its lead program to treat solid tumors at AACR. 

CEO Susan Hill told BioCentury that Cambridge, U.K.-basaed Mestag Therapeutics Ltd. was founded by a group of five scientists who had identified a distinct subpopulation of fibroblasts capable of inducing the formation of tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) — vascularized hubs of lymphocyte interaction and activation that arise from interactions between activated T and B cells and cytokines  CCL19, CCL21 and CXCL13. ...