Business
HCW Biologics Exercised Option to Regain Full Rights for Two Commercial-Ready Reagents from Wugen
HCW Biologics Exercised Option to Regain Full Rights for Two Commercial-Ready Reagents from Wugen
About this update from Hcw Biologics Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Positions the Company to participate in fast-growing, multi-billion-dollar CAR-T immunotherapy market Recently published data suggest that HCW9206 may reduce CAR-T production costs and improve therapeutic efficacies, with the potential to support curative outcomes Company plans to commercialize the reagents through corporate partners focused on CAR-T and NK-cell therapies, including developers and manufacturers MIRAMAR, Fla., May 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HCW Biologics Inc. (the “Company”) (NASDAQ: HCWB), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class fusion immunotherapeutics for autoimmune diseases, cancer, and senescence-associated dysplasia, today announced that it has exercised its option to regain full ex vivo rights to HCW9206 and HCW9201, two commercial-ready compounds as reagents, from its licensee, Wugen Inc. Wugen held exclusive worldwide rights to these two compounds for ex vivo, cell-based therapy applications. The Company acquired these rights for no cost and retained the nonrefundable upfront license fee, including 2.2 million shares of Wugen common stock. Recent data published in the high-impact, peer-reviewed journal, Science Advances, indicate that HCW9206, the Company’s proprietary, commercial-ready multi-cytokine fusion protein reagent, may offer a novel, cost-effective approach to producing CAR-T cells with enhanced function for immunotherapy (see link number 1 for full article below). As a first-in-class cytokine-scaffold platform, HCW9206 has the potential to improve manufacturing efficiency while supporting the development of more potent CAR-T therapies at lower costs. HCW9206 has the advantage of generating a CAR-T population which is markedly enriched for long-lived T-memory stem (“Tscm”) cells, which are rare, highly proliferative, and self-renewing cells. Results from a recent, third-party clinical trial in patients with blood cancer demonstrated that a more defined CAR-T product, enriched with Tscm, persists longer in the body and achieves complete remissions at low doses—without the need for chemotherapy pre-conditioning (see link number 2 to full article below). The Company believes that these results support its perspective that utilizing HCW9206 as part of a manufacturing process may be broadly applicable to increase persistence and functionality of CAR-T therapy. Dr. Hin...