The French company Cellectis is likely to start its Phase I trial soon, as it has just submitted the first Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA for an off-the-shelf CAR-T candidate.
The company’s drug candidate, UCART123 is an allogeneic CAR-T therapy consisting of TALEN engineered T-cells that are intended to bind the CD19 antigen on leukemic cells.
The candidate is manufactured in large scale using cells from a healthy donor instead of autologous treatments relying on the patient’s own cells.
If the trial is granted, the company will soon start Phase I in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN).
André Choulika, CEO of Cellectis firmly believes that “CAR-T is not the miracle cure for cancer“, but in reality a switch control system to turn the T-cells off and adds that their company is trying to just that in addition to ensuring patient safety.
As competition is not unlikely, companies like Novartis and Kite Pharma are already leading the race to launch the first CAR-T therapy; but Cellectis’ allogeneic technology looks promising and also capable of reducing time and costs, and eventually could take over the immuno-oncology market.
The company is also invested in developing healthy and sustainable food through genetic engineering, and
just last year hosted a gene-edited dinner with Calyxt, a subsidiary also using TALEN technology to create better food.
