NL-201

NL-201 was an immunotherapy drug candidate that underwent a Phase 1 human clinical trial in cancer patients.^[1] It is a de novo protein that was first computationally designed at the Institute of Protein Design (IPD), University of Washington.^[2] In November 2022, Neoleukin Therapeutics announced it would discontinue the development of NL-201.^[3]

History

The predecessor of NL-201, neoleukin-2/15, was first described and published on Nature magazine in January 2019.^[2] The citizen science distributed computing project Rosetta@home, based at the University of Washington, contributed with "forward folding" experiments that helped validate protein designs of neoleukin-2/15, from which NL-201 was further developed by Neoleukin Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company that originated at the IPD.^[4][5]

The Phase 1 human clinical trial began on May 5, 2021.^[6]

In January 2022, Neoleukin Therapeutics announced a collaboration with Merck for a combination clinical trial of Merck's Pembrolizumab and Neoleukin's NL-201.^[7]

In November 2022, Neoleukin Therapeutics announced it would discontinue the development of NL-201.^[3]