IPSC - Century Therapeutics Presents New Preclinical Data Highlighting iPSC-derived Cell Therapy Platform Technology at the 2024 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting | Benzinga
PHILADELPHIA, April 08, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Century Therapeutics (NASDAQ:IPSC), an innovative biotechnology company developing induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cell therapies in immuno-oncology and autoimmune and inflammatory disease, today announced that preclinical data from the Company's iPSC-derived cell therapy platform was presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024. The posters highlight the Company's end-to-end capabilities in iPSC reprogramming and differentiation, gene editing, synthetic biology, protein engineering and computational biology.
"Together, the promising preclinical data showcase Century's continued dedication to driving the field of allogeneic cell therapy through the incorporation of a suite of innovations into next generation product candidates," said Hy Levitsky, M.D., President of Research and Development at Century Therapeutics. "We presented new data advancing our Allo-Evasion™ platform through the transgenic expression of HLA-G, which along with HLA-E can augment the protection against host natural killer cell-mediated rejection of iPSC derived cells also engineered to resist T cell recognition through the elimination of HLA-I and HLA-II expression. This enhanced protection against rejection is designed to enable Century's multi-dosing strategy that increases the period of drug exposure, potentially leading to deeper and more durable responses for patients in need. We also presented new data describing our novel, dual-targeting CAR for B cell mediated malignancies which demonstrated promising in vitro and in vivo cytotoxicity and resisting antigen loss, and which we believe expands the potential of allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy beyond currently available options in oncology that only target CD19. Along with other important preclinical data presented at AACR, the findings to date highlight our unique gene editing, protein engineering, and manufacturing capabilities that are the foundations of our industry-leading allogeneic cell therapy pipeline and platform."
Details of the posters presented on Sunday, April 7th and Monday, April 8th are as follows:
The Discovery of a Novel CD19xCD22 Dual-Targeting CAR For the Development of an iPSC-Derived Cell Therapy
Poster Board Number: 4
Session Title: Adoptive Cell Therapies 2: CAR-T Cells
Session Date & Time: Sunday, April 7, 2024, at 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM PT
Through its industry leading engineering capabilities, Century has developed a CD19xCD22 bispecific, CD22 biparatopic chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), which was transduced into primary T cells and demonstrated cytotoxicity activity against CD19 and CD22-positive tumor cells, as well as CD19 knockout and CD22 knockout cell lines in vitro and in in vivo mouse xenograft models. This novel CAR was engineered and tested in iPSC-derived gamma-delta T cells, showing in vitro tumor cell cytotoxicity. These findings support the continued examination of a CD19xCD22 bispecific CAR for off-the-shelf allogeneic cell therapy to expand patient access beyond CD19 CAR-T cell therapies.
Engineered Expression Of HLA-E And HLA-G Protects iPSC-Derived Cells from Killing by Primary NK Cells
Poster Board Number: 3
Session Title: CAR-K, NK Engagers, and NK Modulators
Session Date & Time: Monday, April 8, 2024, at 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM PT
In this study, the Company showed that the combination of HLA-E and HLA-G expression was the most effective in protecting allogeneic drug products from elimination of genetically dissimilar cells. Investigators assessed allo-evasion from natural killer (NK) cells by iPSC-derived cells engineered to express HLA-E and -G. NK cells across donors expressed heterogeneous combinations of HLA-E and -G ligands. K562 and iPSC-derived cells lacking HLA-I were susceptible to killing by PBMCs. Overexpression of HLA-E and -G offered protection to K562 and iPSC-derived cells against all tested donors. HLA-E offered more protection than HLA-G, and the combination of both HLA-E and -G was most potent. When a genetically dissimilar HLA Class I protein family is deleted to prevent T cell mediated graft rejection, expression of the more-conserved HLA-E and -G can effectively protect allogeneic drug products from elimination. We believe this data further reinforces the Company's proprietary Allo-Evasion™ technology and its potential to evade identification by the host immune system, which would allow for repeat dosing without rejection, enabling increased persistence of the cells during the treatment period and potentially leading to deeper and more durable responses.
Screening iPSC Lines for Optimal Characteristics of Differentiation into Immune Effector Cells for Clinical Programs
Poster Board Number: 19
Session Title: Adoptive Cellular Therapy 1
Session Date & Time: Monday, April 8, ...