On January 18, 2024 Alaya.bio, a biotechnology company developing a novel polymeric delivery platform towards in situ cell therapies, reported a collaboration with CAR-T pioneer Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, Stephen and Barbara Friedman Chair and Director, Center for Cell Engineering at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York City (Press release, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, JAN 18, 2024, https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240118114142/en/Alaya.bio-announces-significant-collaboration-with-leading-global-cancer-center-to-advance-in-situ-CAR-T-Therapy [SID1234639347]). The collaboration will advance research into in situ CAR-T cell therapies and evaluate their potential to deliver faster, more effective, and cost-efficient treatments for patients.
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Dr. Sadelain will join Alaya.bio as a scientific co-founder. The collaboration with the Sadelain lab includes a license agreement and a sponsored research agreement. Over the coming two years the Sadelain lab will lead activities to advance Alaya.bio’s polymeric delivery platform into the clinic in a chosen hematological malignancy.
Alaya.bio is developing a unique in situ CAR solution. While offering tremendous promise, traditional ex vivo CAR therapies suffer from significant complexity, long manufacturing cycles and high cost that still represent major hurdles to their widespread use. Alaya.bio’s proprietary polymeric in situ delivery platform is configured to meet the stringent demands of CAR therapy: its targeting agent, grafted onto the polymeric shell, precisely directs nanoparticles to T-cells, ensuring efficient and safe delivery of the therapeutic cargo. This innovative approach guarantees stable expression of the CAR transgene and preserves transduced T-cells from exhaustion, two crucial features for long-term clinical benefit.
Cécile BAUCHE, Ph.D., co-founder and CSO at Alaya.bio, emphasizes the privilege to collaborate with a world-leading institute, such as MSK and a CAR-T pioneer like Dr. Sadelain: "It is an immense pride that MSK and Dr. Sadelain decided to join forces to develop Alaya.bio’s in situ CAR-T platform."
"The ingenuity of Alaya.bio’s targeting polymeric nanoparticles has the potential to simplify and refine the development, manufacturing, and administration of CAR-T cell therapies in ways that expand applications and make them more accessible to patients," said Dr. Sadelain. "I am excited to leverage this technology and support its advancement on the frontiers of cell and gene therapy for patients."
Renaud Vaillant, co-founder and CEO at Alaya.bio, underscores, "Our collaboration with Dr. Sadelain will accelerate the validation of our novel polymeric delivery platform. In parallel, we will take advantage of our platform versatility, through partnering opportunities, to extend its use to adjacent therapeutic areas, while leveraging other innovative payloads like mRNA and gene editing technologies."
Renaud Vaillant will present information about this new collaboration at the MSK Life Sciences Innovation Showcase on January 26, 2024, in New York City.