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Caribou Biosciences Presents Positive Preclinical Data for Allogeneic Anti-BCMA CAR-T Cell Therapy Candidate CB-011 at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting
-- CB-011 is an allogeneic anti-BCMA CAR-T cell therapy immune cloaked to blunt both T- and NK-mediated immune cell rejection, enabling more durable antitumor
About this update from Caribou Biosciences, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"-- CB-011 is an allogeneic anti-BCMA CAR-T cell therapy immune cloaked to blunt both T- and NK-mediated immune cell rejection, enabling more durable antitumor activity -- -- Data support an expected Investigational New Drug (IND) application submission in 2022 for CB-011, Caribou’s second allogeneic cell therapy product candidate -- BERKELEY, Calif., April 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Caribou Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CRBU), a leading clinical-stage CRISPR genome-editing biopharmaceutical company, today announced the presentation of positive preclinical data for its allogeneic, immune-cloaked, anti-BCMA CAR-T cell therapy candidate, CB-011, being developed for the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (r/r MM). The data are being presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting, April 8-13, 2022, in New Orleans. The data demonstrate that CB-011 CAR-T cells are cytotoxic against BCMA-expressing tumor cells and are resistant to killing by both allogeneic T cells and natural killer (NK) cells. In a tumor xenograft model of MM, CAR-T cells expressing a CAR containing a proprietary humanized anti-BCMA antibody fragment (scFv) that is used in CB-011 markedly prolonged antitumor activity compared to CAR-T cells expressing a benchmark anti-BCMA CAR. Caribou is conducting Investigational New Drug (IND) application-enabling safety studies to support a planned IND application submission in 2022 for CB-011 in r/r MM. “The data that will be presented at AACR demonstrate that T cells expressing a CAR deploying Caribou’s proprietary anti-BCMA scFv outperform cells expressing a known benchmark CAR,” said Steve Kanner, Ph.D., Caribou’s chief scientific officer. “The immune-cloaking armoring data confirm the potential value and mechanism of our strategy using multiple genome edits involving HLA class I disruption as an approach to increase the potential therapeutic effect of CB-011. This strategy is enabled by our proprietary Cas12a chRDNA genome-editing technology that reproducibly achieves high specificity genome editing at multiple loci.” Manufacturing CB-011 requires four genome editing steps. Caribou’s Cas12a chRDNA technology is used to insert a gene encoding a proprietary, humanized anti-BCMA CAR into the TRAC gene of the T cell, which also knocks out expression of the T cell receptor, thereby...