Date: 2017-06-25
Type of
information: Presentation of results at a congress
phase: preclinical
Announcement: presentation of results at the 22nd Annual Congress of the European Haematology Association
Company: Molmed (Italy)
Product: CD44v6 CAR-T cells
Action
mechanism: cell immunotherapy/gene therapy. The CAR-CD44v6 is part of the CAR-T family: lymphocytes armed with chimeric receptors that have demonstrated high anti-tumour potential, also against tumours. The CAR-CD44v6 project, which has already been successfully tested in appropriate murine models, represents a product candidate with a high therapeutic potential, as it specifically recognises variant 6 (v6) of the antigen CD44 (CD44v6), expressed by many haematological malignancies, including acute myeloid leukaemia and multiple myeloma - as well as by several epithelial tumours, including breast, colon, pancreatic, head-and-neck and lung carcinomas.
Disease:
Therapeutic
area: Cancer - Oncology
Country:
Trial
details:
Latest
news:
- • On June 25, 2017, MolMed announces new safety in vitro data on its proprietary cancer immunogene therapy project CAR-CD44v6, presented at the 22nd Annual Congress of the European Haematology Association (Madrid, June 22-25, 2017). Dr. Attilio Bondanza, Head of Innovative
Immunotherapies Unit, Division of Immunology, Transplantation and Infectious Diseases, at San Raffaele
Hospital Scientific Institute, presented these data during an oral session titled “Hematology-in-Focus: New strategies in cellular therapy to prevent relapse of acute leukemia”, explaining the advent of CAR-T cells therapy in the treatment of AML. Strong potential in curing chronic and acute
leukaemia refractory to standard treatments has been demonstrated for CAR-T cells. However, CAR-T cells also have the capacity to elicit life-threatening toxicities including cytokine release syndrome, neurologic toxicity and potential on-target/off-tumour toxicity. Thus, managing CAR-T cells and abrogating their potential toxicity has become a critical step in the successful application of this emerging technology and for its clinical development. Data presented at EHA Annual Congress couple with outcomes presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Haematology (San Diego, CA, December 3- 6, 2016), regarding the determinants of CART cell efficacy and associated toxicities, that confirmed, on the subject of leukaemia, efficacy and higher safety
profile of T cells ex vivo transduced with MolMed’s CD44v6 CAR-T compared to CD19 CAR-T cells, and showed its therapeutic potential in epithelial tumours.
- Dr. Bondanza presentation held in Madrid focused on the safety profile of CD44v6 CAR-T cells and showed how, although expressing the CD44v6 target at detectable levels, keratinocytes are highly resistant to CAR-T cell killing. These data suggest a wide enough therapeutic window for exploiting the antitumour activity of CD44v6 CAR-T cells, without incurring in unbearable skin toxicity.
Is
general: Yes
