On December 9, 2023 Nkarta, Inc. (Nasdaq: NKTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing engineered natural killer (NK) cell therapies, reported a poster presentation at the 2023 American Society of Hematology (ASH) (Free ASH Whitepaper) Annual Meeting and Exposition featuring follow-up data from its Phase 1 clinical trial that evaluates NKX101 in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (r/r AML) (Press release, Nkarta, DEC 9, 2023, View Source [SID1234638329]). NKX101 is an allogeneic, off-the-shelf NK cell therapy candidate derived from healthy donors and engineered to target NKG2D ligands.
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As reported in June 2023, of those patients who received NKX101 after a disease-specific lymphodepletion (LD) regimen comprising fludarabine and cytarabine (Flu/Ara-C), four of six achieved CR/CRi. In the follow up presented today, three of those four patients remained in CR/CRi at 4 months from treatment with NKX101. No cases of cytokine release syndrome (CRS), immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS), or graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) of any grade were observed in these patients.
"While this data set is small, we’re encouraged to see responses and early durability in patients with high-risk features, including those who have relapsed after stem cell transplantation. Recent progress in therapy for r/r AML has been limited to targeted therapies, which only help a minority of patients. This all-comers study seeks to help patients without targetable mutations as well as those for whom these treatments are ineffective," noted David R. Shook, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Nkarta. "We continue to evaluate NKX101 following Flu/Ara-C in this high-need patient population."
Nkarta plans to provide an update from the NKX101 Flu/Ara-C LD cohort in the first half of 2024 that includes preliminary safety and response data from 12 to 20 additional patients.
Nkarta’s 2023 ASH (Free ASH Whitepaper) poster will be available for download shortly after its scheduled presentation at View Source
About NKX101
NKX101 is an allogeneic, cryopreserved, off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapy candidate that uses natural killer (NK) cells derived from the peripheral blood of healthy donors. It is engineered with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) targeting NKG2D ligands on tumor cells. NKG2D, a key activating receptor found on naturally occurring NK cells, induces a cell-killing immune response through the detection of stress ligands that are widely expressed on cancer cells. NKX101 is also engineered with a membrane-bound form of interleukin-15 (IL15) for greater persistence and activity without exogenous cytokine support.