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Fate Therapeutics Announces Exclusive License Agreement with Baylor College of Medicine for Rejection-resistant iPSC-derived Cellular Therapies
License Covers First-in-class Alloimmune Defense Receptors Designed to Protect Allogeneic Cells from Rejection in Immunocompetent Recipients Preclinical Data
About this update from Fate Therapeutics, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"License Covers First-in-class Alloimmune Defense Receptors Designed to Protect Allogeneic Cells from Rejection in Immunocompetent Recipients\n Preclinical Data Published in the Journal Nature Biotechnology Demonstrate Allogeneic CAR T Cells Overcome Immune Rejection and Exhibit Durable Tumor Eradication SAN DIEGO, July 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fate Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: FATE), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of programmed cellular immunotherapies for cancer and immune disorders, today announced that the Company entered into an exclusive license agreement with Baylor College of Medicine covering alloimmune defense receptors, a first-in-class approach that renders off-the-shelf allogeneic cell products resistant to host immune rejection. Preclinical studies published in the journal Nature Biotechnology (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-020-0601-5) demonstrate that allogeneic cells engineered with a novel alloimmune defense receptor (ADR) are protected from both T- and NK-cell mediated rejection, and provide proof-of-concept that ADR-expressing allogeneic cell therapies can durably persist in immunocompetent recipients. “Allogeneic cell therapy requires a patient to endure systemic lympho-conditioning to suppress the immune system and mitigate cellular rejection, often resulting in severe blood cell deficiencies and related toxicities. There is great interest in strategies that enable allogeneic cells to overcome host immunity and evade immune rejection while maintaining a patient’s functional hematopoietic system,” said Scott Wolchko, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fate Therapeutics. “The published preclinical data provide compelling evidence that allogeneic cell therapies armed with novel alloimmune defense receptors can effectively abrogate both T- and NK-cell rejection responses and can persist and remain functional in immunocompetent patients.” ADRs are synthetic receptors that selectively recognize cell surface receptors, such as 4-1BB, that are uniquely expressed on activated lymphocytes, which are responsible for host immune rejection. The published preclinical findings show that the arming of allogeneic T cells with an ADR selectively eliminates alloreactive T and NK cells, while sparing resting lymphocytes. Importantly, in in vivo preclinical models of canc...