Chimeric Therapeutics (ASX:CHM) partners with US biotech firm to expand cell therapy reach

Highlights

• Chimeric Therapeutics and Achieve Clinics have formed a collaboration to expand the reach of CHM’s cell therapies.
• Achieve Clinics’ PRO-Aph^TM is expected to streamline future development plans for CHM and improve access to CHM CDH17.
• The partnership aims to enhance patient access to innovative autologous cell therapies in the GI cancer space.

Shares of Chimeric Therapeutics Limited (ASX:CHM) gained 7.69% during early trading on 25 September 2024, following a promising development. The company announced a strategic partnership with Achieve Clinics, a Los Angeles-based biotechnology firm focused on improving patient access to autologous cell therapies.

Achieve Clinics is revolutionising the cancer treatment journey through PRO-Aph™, a zero-cost option that allows patients to undergo proactive apheresis.

This collaboration will facilitate the use of product gathered from apheresis, which is cryopreserved from patients according to Achieve Clinics’ process, for the manufacture of CHM CDH17.

Chimeric is developing CHM CDH17, the world’s first CAR-T cell therapy targeting cadherin 17, and is actively recruiting gastrointestinal (GI) cancer patients for a clinical trial in the United States.

About Achieve Clinics

Achieve Clinics focuses on connecting cancer patients with autologous cell therapies they may require in the futureThese therapies, derived from a patient’s own cells, are challenging to produce and difficult for patients to accessAchieve is committed to ensuring that any patient who could benefit from cell therapy can receive it.

PRO-Aph^TM, a free-to-patient proactive leukopheresis process, is central to the company’s approachIt revolutionises patient access to cell therapies by allowing for the proactive collection of cells before standard care treatments failWhen cancer is progressing and patients are undergoing systemic chemotherapy, the logistics of leukapheresis become complicated, reducing the effectiveness of CAR T therapyPRO-Aph^TM addresses this issue by collecting cells when patients are at their healthiest.

Goal of the partnership

Under the partnership, Achieve Clinics will perform collection and storage of autologous cell therapy starting materials from patients diagnosed with GI cancer or other applicable conditionsThese patients will be appropriately consented and will join Achieve's PRO-Aph participant registry, allowing CHM to screen and enrol them once they become eligible.

The collected cells will be used to manufacture CHM CDH17 for qualifying patients, and any unused cells may be utilised for future research.