On May 27, 2020 Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLCM), a leader in developing novel, controllable cellular immunotherapies for cancers, reported the publication of preclinical data from its GoCAR-NK Cell Program in the digital edition of Blood Advances, a journal published by The American Society of Hematology (ASH) (Free ASH Whitepaper) (Press release, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, MAY 27, 2020, View Source [SID1234558624]). The article is titled "Inducible MyD88/CD40 synergizes with IL-15 to enhance antitumor efficacy of CAR-NK cells." Bellicum’s proprietary inducible MyD88/CD40 (iMC) activation switch is incorporated into its GoCAR product candidates. In this study, incorporating iMC into CAR-NK cells was found to improve cell proliferation and persistence, stimulate cytokine production, and enhance innate cytotoxicity against tumor cells in multiple models.
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"We are pleased to see these preclinical data published in Blood Advances," said Rick Fair, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bellicum. "These results support our enthusiasm for the application of the GoCAR platform to allogeneic natural killer cells. Based on these findings, we have nominated our first GoCAR-NK program targeting BCMA for preclinical development and expect to present additional data later this year."
Bellicum’s GoCAR-NK platform is designed to address several of the current challenges of allogeneic cell therapy approaches. iMC signaling combined with autocrine IL-15 may enhance engraftment and survival of CAR-NK cells. GoCAR-NK cytokine production may re-ignite a host-derived antitumor response. Further, iMC activation in GoCAR-NK cells enhances both CAR antigen-specific and innate NK cell cytotoxicity, offering the potential for activity against tumor cells with reduced or completely absent target antigen expression. Finally, NK cells have low risk of eliciting graft versus host disease, making them attractive for allogeneic cell therapy.
Allogeneic GoCAR-NK cells may improve the durability of clinical responses while offering the anticipated advantages that an off-the-shelf product may provide, including faster and more certain time to treatment, greater scalability and convenience, and potentially lower cost. Management expects to present additional preclinical data for this program by the end of 2020.