Chimeric Therapeutics, a drug development company focused on novel CAR-T cell therapies for solid tumours, has entered a licensing agreement with world-renowned US cancer research and treatment centre, City of Hope, for the intellectual property relating to its chlorotoxin chimeric antigen receptor (CLTX CAR-T) cell therapy.
The company said the therapy, which uses a peptide derived from scorpion toxin to direct T cells to target tumours, is being used in a phase one clinical trial to treat glioblastoma (GBM). The first patient was recently initiated in the trial.
Under the licensing agreement, Chimeric has acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commericalise City of Hope’s CLTX CAR-T cells, as well as further develop the therapy for other cancers.
“Chimeric is excited to join City of Hope in its quest to find more effective cancer therapies. This is an exceedingly rare opportunity to acquire a promising technology in one of the most exciting areas of immuno-oncology today,” said Chimeric’s executive chairman Paul Hopper.
“Furthermore, the CLTX-CAR T cell therapy has completed years of preclinical research and development, and recently enrolled its first patient in a phase 1 clinical trial for brain cancer.”
The development of the technology was led by Christine Brown, Ph.D., City of Hope's Heritage Provider Network Professor in Immunotherapy and deputy director of its T Cell Therapeutics Research Laboratory, Michael Barish, Ph.D., chair of City of Hope’s Department of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, and Dongrui Wang, Ph.D., a recent graduate of City of Hope’s Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences.
“City of Hope is excited to enter into this agreement with Chimeric as it supports our innovative research in CAR T cell therapy and our commitment to extend these therapies to more patients, particularly those with GBM and other solid tumors that are difficult to treat,” said Dr Brown.
“Chimeric shares our goal of providing effective CAR T cell therapies to more patients with current unmet medical needs.”
CAR-T is the use of a patient’s own re-engineered T cells, which carry Chimeric Antigen Receptors, to target cancer cells.