On July 19, 2019 Immatics Biotechnologies GmbH, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company active in the discovery and development of T-cell redirecting cancer immunotherapies, reported a comprehensive data set having completed the first cohort of the ACTolog Personalized Multi-Target T-cell Therapy Trial (Study code: IMA101-101, NCT02876510) at the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) Special Conference on Immune Cell Therapies for Cancer (Press release, Immatics Biotechnologies, JUL 19, 2019, http://investors.immatics.com/news-releases/news-release-details/immatics-presents-first-cohort-data-actologr-personalized-multi [SID1234569542]).

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ACTolog is an adoptive cell therapy (ACT) product using the patient’s own (autologous), non-genetically engineered (endogenous) T cells. "To our knowledge, this is the first time that patients are being treated with multiple defined cell therapy products directed against multiple specific tumor targets. For each of the T-cell products the actual expression of the targets is confirmed in a fresh tumor biopsy taken prior to product manufacturing. ACTolog is taking personalized cell therapy to the next level – aiming to provide effective treatments for patients with advanced solid cancers", states Dr. Harpreet Singh, CEO of Immatics.

The ACTolog approach has been pioneered by Prof. Cassian Yee at MD Anderson and expanded by Immatics to include multiple proprietary cancer targets discovered by Immatics’ XPRESIDENT platform. The trial is led by Principal Investigator Prof. Apostolia M. Tsimberidou and Co-Principal Investigator Prof. Borje S. Andersson with collaboration from other MD Anderson colleagues.

The data set will be provided in three oral presentations and two poster presentations by Prof. Tsimberidou, Dr. Nowak and Dr. Singh– for details see below.

The main conclusions from the currently available data set (N=9 patients, immune data for N=7 patients) are:

All patients entered the trial with progressive disease, having failed the previous line of therapy. Median duration of disease of the patients was 4 years (range 2-18 years) with a median of 6 previous rounds of treatment (range 3-12). Patients received a median of 2 target-specific ACTolog products (range 1-3).
ACTolog IMA101 is well tolerated. The most common adverse events, as expected, were cytopenias associated with the lymphodepleting regimen and Grade 1-2 cytokine release syndrome.
High frequencies and persistence of target-specific CD8+ T cells of up to 50% of peripheral CD8+ T cells (measured ex vivo) were observed within the blood of patients up to 12 weeks after adoptive transfer.
Comprehensive cellular immunomonitoring indicates a favorable phenotype of infused T cells.
All treated patients had stable disease by RECIST and irRECIST at 6 weeks and are alive to date after a median follow-up of 8 months.
The trial is part of a series of research programs and clinical trials conducted in a strategic alliance between Immatics and MD Anderson. The ACTolog T-cell products are manufactured at the Evelyn H. Griffin Stem Cell Therapeutics Research Laboratory in collaboration with The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston (UTHealth).