On December 6, 2020 Allogene Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALLO), a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of allogeneic CAR T (AlloCAR T) therapies for cancer, reported preclinical findings of ALLO-316, an AlloCAR T therapy targeting CD70, in models of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) (Press release, Allogene, DEC 6, 2020, View Source [SID1234572473]). Data were presented in a poster session today at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) (Free ASH Whitepaper).
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The Company also announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for a Phase 1 trial of ALLO-316 for patients with advanced or metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The Company’s first solid tumor trial is expected to begin enrolling patients in 2021.
"We are very excited about the potential of ALLO-316, our fourth AlloCAR T investigational therapy, to treat patients with CD70 expressing malignancies across both hematologic and solid tumor indications," said Rafael Amado, M.D., Executive Vice President of Research & Development and Chief Medical Officer of Allogene. "These preclinical results in AML, coupled with previous findings of ALLO-316 in RCC presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting in 2019, reinforce our belief that CD70 may become one of the more important targets across a broad spectrum of cancers."
CD70 is expressed in a number of malignancies ranging from solid tumors such as RCC, lung cancer and glioblastoma to hematologic cancers including AML, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
In the preclinical studies presented at ASH (Free ASH Whitepaper), CD70 expression was detected on AML cell lines and primary AML samples from patients. No expression of CD70 was identified in hematopoietic stem cells. ALLO-316 demonstrated the ability to mediate efficient killing of leukemic cells in multiple models. This killing activity was specific to CD70 expression on the target cells as ALLO-316 did not kill AML cell lines in which CD70 was knocked out. The preclinical studies also showed that ALLO-316 can mask CD70 on the surface of CAR T cells thereby preventing fratercide and allowing scaled manufacturing of AlloCAR T cells.