On June 27, 2022 Alaunos Therapeutics, Inc. ("Alaunos" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: TCRT), a clinical-stage oncology-focused cell therapy company, reported that the Company has extended its Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), an institute of the National Institutes of Health, using the Alaunos Sleeping Beauty technology through January 2025 (Press release, Alaunos Therapeutics, JUN 27, 2022, View Source [SID1234616291]).
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Under the terms of the CRADA, the NCI will work to generate proof of concept utilizing the Company’s proprietary non-viral Sleeping Beauty technology for personalized TCR-T cell therapy. In this setting, T-cell receptors (TCRs) that react to the patient’s tumor will be identified from the patient and used to generate a TCR-T cell therapy. This approach could potentially apply to a wide range of solid tumor cancer patients. Alaunos believes that the non-viral Sleeping Beauty technology could rapidly and cost effectively produce safe and potent TCR-T cell therapies without the complexity of gene editing or viral approaches. Research conducted under the CRADA will be led by Steven A. Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of the Surgery Branch at the NCI’s Center for Cancer Research.
"We are privileged to extend the productive collaboration with Dr. Rosenberg, a cell therapy pioneer. Dr. Rosenberg and the NCI are working to develop personalized cancer therapies using our novel TCR-T cell platform," commented Kevin S. Boyle, Sr., Chief Executive Officer of Alaunos. "Our collaboration reinforces our commitment to improving the lives of cancer patients with solid tumors. We look forward to continuing our collaborating with Dr. Rosenberg and his team to generate proof of concept in this personalized TCR-T approach."
Drew Deniger, Ph.D., Vice President, Research & Development at Alaunos added, "Having worked alongside Dr. Rosenberg for many years, I am confident that his team at the NCI will be successful in developing personalized TCR-T therapies using our non-viral Sleeping Beauty technology. As the world’s experts in Sleeping Beauty, we believe that our non-viral means of adding the TCR to T cells is well suited for a personalized approach, with potential to further increase the addressable population for TCR-T therapies."