On April 6, 2022 Shenzhen Pregene Biopharma, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in discovering, developing, manufacturing and commercializes innovative medicines and CellPoint, a cell therapy company developing CAR-T therapeutics for use at the point-of-care (POC), reported an exclusive license agreement for the development and commercialization of PRG-1801, Pregene’s single domain antibody-based anti-BCMA chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) program, for the treatment of hematological indications in Europe and the United States (Press release, PreGene, APR 6, 2022, View Source [SID1234611510]).
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PRG-1801 is a single domain antibody anti-BCMA CAR-T cell therapy in development for the treatment of relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma that has demonstrated strong signs of efficacy and an excellent safety profile in its initial investigator-initiated trial and Phase I/II clinical trials.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Pregene will receive over €20 million of upfront and near-term consideration, and is eligible to receive additional development, commercial milestone and royalty payments. CellPoint will be responsible for the development and commercialization of the anti-BCMA CAR-T therapy in Europe and the US. As part of this partnership, Pregene will also provide translational and lentivirus manufacturing services to be reimbursed by Cellpoint.
"We are excited to partner with Cellpoint to develop CAR-T cell therapies via a POC platform," said Jishuai Zhang, Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder of Pregene. "The potential of our single domain antibody fully human BCMA CAR-T to treat patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma has been validated in clinical trials of our BCMA autologous CAR-T product candidate. We expect the POC modality to enable faster treatment for broader patients using our differentiated CAR-T therapy, and we look forward to working with the team at CellPoint as they seek to develop and commercialize PRG-1801."
Tol Trimborn, Chief Executive Officer of CellPoint, said: "We are very pleased to add Pregene’s novel anti-BCMA CAR-T therapy to our CAR-T portfolio and look forward to develop it using our decentralised, POC manufacturing model. This is our second clinical stage program and we have demonstrated we can provide cell therapy to cancer patients in only 6 days vein-to-vein, from apheresis to infusion. We are excited to work closely alongside Pregene to bring this to patients with a convenient, readily available treatment alternative."
About PRG-1801 (anti-BCMA CAR-T)
PRG-1801 is an anti-BCMA CAR-T therapy that utilizes a humanized single-domain antibody as the antigen binding domain and lentivirus as a vector. The lentivirus vectors are produced by Pregene using a proprietary serum free suspension production system with gene-therapy-grade quality and a high transduction unit yield. This CAR-T therapy has already demonstrated strong signs of efficacy and an excellent safety profile in an investigator initiated trial and Phase I/II clinical trials. In addition to multiple myeloma, Pregene is investigating PRG-1801 in patients with autoimmune diseases. In May of 2021, Pregene and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories announced a license agreement whereby Dr Reddy’s acquired the exclusive rights in India for PRG-1801.
Clinical trials of PRG-1801 include:
Phase I trial to evaluate the safety and tolerance of patients with relapsed/ refractory multiple myeloma after anti-BCMA CAR-T infusion, and to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and/or recommended dose (RD) of anti-BCMA CAR-T for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. Available clinical data showed overall response rate (ORR) of 100%. A Phase II clinical trial is now ongoing.
Investigator-initiated trial in China to evaluate the safety and efficacy of PRG-1801 (NCT03661554). Among 34 patients treated, 30 (88.2%) patients achieved best objective response and 19 (55.8%) patients achieved complete response. No neurotoxicity was observed among treated patients. Grade 3 CRS occurred in only one patient (2.9%), and all the other patients had lower grade or no CRS.