Date: 2018-02-23
Type of information: Grant
Company: Fate Therapeutics (USA - CA)
Investors: California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) (USA - CA)
Amount: $4 million
Funding type: grant
Planned used:
- Fate Therapeutics will use this grant to advance FT516 into a first-in-human clinical trial. FT516 is being developed as an off-the-shelf engineered NK cell cancer immunotherapy. The NK cell product candidate is derived from a clonal master induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line engineered to uniformly express a novel CD16 Fc receptor.
- NK cells play a critical role in the prevention and treatment of cancer. NK cells naturally express CD16, a potent activating receptor that enables binding of NK cells to the Fc portion of IgG antibodies. Once activated through CD16, NK cells can lyse antibody-coated tumor cells and can secrete immune signaling cytokines, such as interferon gamma, to orchestrate a broad adaptive immune response. Unfortunately, the expression of CD16 on NK cells can undergo considerable down-regulation in cancer patients, which can lead to loss of NK cell anti-tumor activity.
- FT516 expresses a novel CD16 Fc receptor that has been modified to prevent the receptor’s down-regulation and to enhance its binding affinity to IgG antibodies. In preclinical studies conducted by Fate Therapeutics, FT516 exhibited potent and persistent anti-tumor activity in vitro and in vivo in multiple tumor cell recognition and killing assays, including in combination with various IgG antibodies.
- Fate Therapeutics plans to develop FT516 for the treatment of multiple tumor types, both as a monotherapy and in combination with tumor-targeting monoclonal antibody therapy. The first-in-human study is expected to evaluate the safety and tolerability of multiple dosing cycles of FT516 in combination with FDA-approved monoclonal antibody therapy.
Others:
- • On February 23, 2018, Fate Therapeutics announced that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) awarded the company a $4.0 million grant to advance FT516 into a first-in-human clinical trial.
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Is general: Yes
