EDMONTON, ALBERTA — RJH Biosciences Inc. has announced a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a new device to enable ‘Immunotherapy On-the-Go’. RJH Biosciences Inc., a privately held biotech company in Edmonton, Alberta, will pursue a Phase I Project under the Grand Challenges Explorations initiative to develop a new mode of immunotherapy.
Recently emerging immunotherapy has excited the medical field by creating novel forms of therapy, especially for deadly cancers. Immunotherapy is now being explored in the treatment of different diseases, with hundreds of clinical immunotherapy studies underway around the world. Current immunotherapy relies on viruses to manipulate and stimulate the immune system by modifying patients’ cells outside the body. This protocol is costly ($500,000 per treatment is typical) and requires extensive facilities to undertake the therapy. As a result, this kind of therapy is not accessible to most patients, especially in the Developing World.